Only 'Cause You're Lonely
by PossumSoul
Summary: Post '47 Seconds' AU. *COMPLETE* "If this is how she's going to treat someone she considered to be her partner..." He feels something inside of himself harden at the words that form in his mind, "then that's not the kind of person I want to spend the rest of my life with."
1. Chapter 1

It still burns... but he stopped noticing it. Probably needs something stronger.

He doesn't bother and grabs the decanter, stiffening the muscles in his arm when he keeps leaning forward after taking a hold of it. He sneers and pours just above the right amount of the dark, amber colored liquid into the tumbler, setting down the decanter with a loud thud. He snatches the tumbler up, the scotch sloshing around, just teasing the edges of spilling out when he throws himself back into his office chair. He doesn't take the first, and last long swig to down the alcohol, instead, just slouches down more and lets his head fall back, letting his eyes pull themselves shut.

The light of his phone sitting in the desk behind the decanter catches his attention. He throws his head forward, and after catching up to his head that wanted to take him in another direction completely, he looks at the caller ID. He feels reminded of his responsibilities at the sight of who's calling, rolls his eyes and throws himself back into his chair. He knows why she's calling. His finalized manuscript is due in just a couple of days, and he still hasn't sent it to her. It's done, has been done, just... not important right now.

The phone lets out a short vibrate, letting him know that the call was sent to voice mail just as he lifts his glass to his lips, deciding to nurse this one for a change. He hasn't made the full decision that he's drinking to get drunk quite yet. But his arms do feel weighted, his legs don't feel supportive, and his equilibrium is anything but trustworthy right now. He's probably already past the point of no return. But he's holding his breath that he doesn't have to just take the plunge and be done with it.

His eyes drift shut a minute or two after Gina's missed phone call, his consciousness wanting to leave him. He feels like such a slave right now. A prisoner to his own morals. He wants to, just once, be able to break them, go against what they tell him to do. That's never happened before. The dull ache that he feels has never actually hurt before. He can't figure out why. Well... he could, but he doesn't want to find out where that rabbit hole would take him. Because it probably ends where every other one ends, with him being in the wrong, having to back pedal his way to being back where he started.

He hears the jangle of jewelry and the clack of heels coming toward his office from the living room. One of the two people he can actually stomach seeing right now, at least. He does wish Alexis were here though. She wouldn't say anything, she would just lean down and hug him. But his mother... "Darling, I just got off the phone with your ex-wife."

Castle opens his eyes but doesn't lift his head and looks toward his mother, standing in the threshold to his office. "Judging by the lack of blood on your hands, I'm guessing it wasn't Meredith."

Martha lifts her hands in the air and shakes her head. "No," she says, starting toward her son's desk and turning on the small lamp, "she said that your final manuscript is due on Thursday, and you won't return her calls."

He starts to groan, but doesn't let it get vocalized, lifting his glass to his lips again, taking a small sip. "It's done, just..." He says, tossing his glass forward toward the stack of papers sitting on the corner of his desk.

Martha groans, "Alright," She murmurs to herself, coming round to the other side of his desk, "I have seen the post-break up version of Richard Castle before, and this is not it." He says, sitting half way between fully sitting on his desk and leaning against it. He tilts his head forward, the head rush only worse now with the alcohol in his system. "You have been sulking in this dark office for four days, drowning yourself in alcohol, and- _give_ me that!" She scolds as he starts to lift his glass to his mouth again.

He doesn't put up any sort of fight, and just lets his arm fall back down against the arm rest of his chair after his hand is empty. Martha sets the glass down on the far end of the desk, away from her son's reach, like any mother would with a cookie jar before dinner time.

"You're not writing, you're not returning Gina's phone calls." She goes on, a windmill motion turning her hand.

"You say that like it's new." He cracks.

"Alexis is worried about you." She says, her voice soft and worrisome, reaching down to touch his wrist. "Now I have seen you post-breakup before, Richard, and it is certainly not whatever it is you're doing to yourself right now."

His shoulders feel heavy and his gut churns. "I tried." He admits after a thick pause between them, his mother patiently waiting him out. "The night the case was over, I put on my best clothes, my best cologne, grabbed the keys to the Ferrari, ready to..." He lets his words fall as he tosses his hand in the air. "But then I looked in the mirror, and..." He forces his throat closed at the feeling of his voice breaking. He doesn't want to admit that what he saw was her, taking his arm with a bright, nervous smile on her face, but not a care in the world other than him. Either admitting it to her is more painful than him actually having to accept that that's why he couldn't go through with it.

He just closes his eyes and regains his steadiness with a few long deep breaths.

"Point is, you were right."

Martha pauses, lowering her head and lifting her brow. "About?"

He feels the same dull ache he's felt for as long as he can remember remind him that his heart is still broken. "I can't just shut it off."

"Have you spoken to her?" Castle just shakes his head.

"She's called a few times." Martha allowed him to leave it at that. Her son is hurt, and she is doing the compassionate thing by standing aside and not forcing him to face the women responsible for breaking his heart. And inside Castle's head, he feels his barriers being eroded, simply by the need to tell someone who will just listen to him, someone who won't judge him, who will do nothing more than let him get the words out. "It's not supposed to hurt this much."

"Having your heart broken does hurt, kiddo." She quips, sounding as if she's stating the obvious.

"But I've had my heart broken before. Why does it hurt so much now? Why is it so different this time?" He asks desperately, finally lifting his head up to look his mother in the eye, finding nothing but a loving gaze and a soft smile, her hands clasped together in her lap.

"Well... why _is_ it different this time?" Asking him in a way that she knows he knows the answer, but was hoping that she'd say it for him.

He pushes the last bit of air out of his lungs before answering her, looking back down toward the hardwood floor of his office. "Because _she_ was supposed to be different."

"Well, Richard, if nothing else, at least give her a chance to explain things."

That sets off something inside of him that has wanted to escape for days. He stands up quickly, enough to make his office chair shoot back a couple feet, and starts to stagger around his office. "I gave her a chance, I gave her a years worth of chances! She's had every opportunity to come clean, but she lied. She just lied. This whole time, she's being toying with me. I've been giving this my all, I've been trying, I've been holding my heart out there, I've bared my soul, I've been trying for four years to get that woman to see that I can be enough for her. But all she's done is make me realize that I'll never be enough for her!" He says, throwing his arms in the air.

"Richard..." She tries fruitlessly to stop him from shouting and get him to come back down.

"I am _sick_ to the back teeth of her demanding so much out of me only to _always_ come up short, and just demand more the next time. I can't keep doing that, Mother! No matter how much I'm in love with that woman, I can't keep doing this to myself." He feels tears burn in his eyes, some have probably already fallen.

Martha holds up her hands as she comes around from the other side of his desk, coming to stand in front of him. "You're hurt, I understand that, sweetheart. That was probably supposed to come out a few days ago, but Richard..." She slows, softening her voice, "are you really ready to just give up on her?"

Castle closes his mouth and cranes his neck. "Of course I'm not ready." He says in a voice, half breaking above a whisper. "But I have to. If this is how she's going to treat someone she considered to be her partner..." He feels something inside of himself harden at the words that form in his mind, "then that's not the kind of person I want to spend the rest of my life with." He says in the steadiest voice he's felt since this conversation started.

Martha, nodding her head, is disappointed... no, deeply saddened at the fact that her son is just giving up and seems to be just resigning to his fate, but can also tell that his mind is made up. "Alright, kiddo." She says, putting a motherly hand on his arm. "As long as you're sure."

He nods as the sound of his phone vibrating again cuts through the silence and calls both of their attentions. Martha is the first to react and take a few quick steps toward the phone. Once she sees who it is, she grabs it and turns back to her son. "Pardon the expression but..." She lifts his phone up to him, "speak of the devil."

Castle, his heart already stone cold, sighs. "And she shall appear." Martha lifts one of her brows inquisitively, but Castle just shakes his head and goes into the living room, while Martha lets out a long breath, having done what she feels is her best without forcing him to do something he's clearly not willing to do, and sets his phone back down onto his desk just as Beckett's smiling picture turns black on the screen.

* * *

 _"You've reached Richard Castle. Lucky you! Leave a message and I'll get back to you."_

She feels disappointment, let down, and paranoia cloud her senses, but she focuses her energy on keeping it from showing in her voice. "Hey Castle. Listen, we got a body drop in Central Park. I'm headed there now if you want to meet me, but..." She takes a long pause, wanting to say something... neutral. "I haven't heard from you in almost a week. You know you can... talk to me if there's something wrong. We're partners, Castle. Uh..." Sensing she's running out of time on her voice message, she wraps up. "If you get this message, we could use your help. Thanks." She hangs up, throws her phone on the passenger seat, not missing that it's the seat that's usually occupied by her partner.

She comes up to Central Park, stopping her cruiser and parking it right next to the patrol cars who have their lights flashing. She waves at the uniform standing at the crime scene tape, her badge cupped in the palm of her hand. She steps through, seeing Lanie standing over a body with her metal clipboard on her arm, Esposito knelt down next to it, with Ryan off in the distance talking to a few pedestrians. "Hey Lanie." She says, not bothering to change her voice to mismatch her current clout of emotions.

"Hey." Lanie starts, and while Beckett is looking down, focusing on the jogger with a bullet wound in his chest, Lanie is focusing on her, and she can feel it. "What's up?"

She looks up to her, brow raised, feigning she doesn't know what she's talking about. "Huh-Oh... nothing."

"Nu-uh." Lanie sasses, waving her pen in front of her. "Where's Castle?" She asks, looking behind her for her partner, whom she knows isn't coming.

"Yeah," Esposito starts, standing up from the body on the ground, "this is the second body drop he's been a no-show to, what's up?"

"You guys talking about Castle?" Ryan chimes in.

"Mmhmm." Lanie hums with pursed lips, indicating that she knows that there's more than the 'nothing' Beckett led on to, but going back to filling out her report anyway.

"Yeah, where's he been? He's missed two bodies so far this week. He sick?"

"No," She shrugs with an unbelievable shrug of her shoulders, "he's probably just busy. He has the deadline for his next book coming up."

The trio in front of her seem to accept her lie, he's been done with it since before the bombing case last week. He's just been using it as an excuse to avoid Gina. "That sucks." Ryan adds, looking toward his own partner, who nods. "He's the only thing around here that makes this job fun." Ryan adds before turning and going back toward the huddle of uniforms he came from.

"What, I'm not fun?" Espo calls after him, throwing his arms out to his sides.

"You're not as handsome!" Ryan calls with a smirk. She enjoys the comradery between them for a moment, even shaking her head with pulled lips and a quirked brow when he looks over to her, hoping for reaffirmation from her that she doesn't provide as she runs with the joke... that isn't entirely untrue.

They go through the details of the case, and after Lanie loads the body onto a stretcher and promises more details after a full autopsy, Beckett nods, but Lanie catches her attention before she heads back to her cruiser. "Hey," Beckett turns and goes to stand in front of Lanie. "Is something wrong with Castle? Something I should know about?" She asks with a raised brow, the corners of her lips tucked in.

"Nothing, it's... I think the bombing case may have gotten to him. He hasn't returned any of my calls or text messages since we closed it. I'm getting worried." She says softly, looking down to the grass under her heeled boots. After a moment of being stared at by Lanie and not hearing a retort, she looks up, seeing Lanie just widen her eyes at her. Knowing what she's saying by not saying it, she nods her head. "I'll go by there this afternoon."

Lanie nods off to her side and pushes the body to the van to be loaded up.

She checks her watch, has a few hours till she's due at Burke's, the boys should have the canvass all handled, and she could use his help on this one. If nothing else, to liven her spirits. She climbs into her cruiser, headed away from the precinct and toward his loft, the snippet of paranoia cracking the ends of her nerves. She shakes the fears out of her head and relaxes back into her seat.

It's probably nothing.

* * *

 **A/N: Prompt has probably been done to death, but wanted to give my take. Let me know what you think. As with everything I write, I know where I'm going with this. Hope you enjoy. :)**

 _(Also, I am open and in search of a "semi" co-writer. Someone to proof read, check spelling, grammar, vocab, whatever the case or situation may call for. I've gotten too many reviews complaining about it, and I can't catch everything, but you guys seem to. You can send me a direct message if you're interested, and we can discuss it. Thanks again for the support, reviews, praise, and comments. I really appreciate it.)  
_


	2. Chapter 2

He brakes to a stop at the end of the block. He puts his Lexus into park, taking in a deep breath and running his hands up his face, letting the breath out as they go into his ruffled hair. He hasn't bothered to shave the past two days, and is self admittedly not looking his usual clean, pressed self. But he's sober at least, after a pot of a black coffee made via Chemex.

He grabs the tan folder that holds his final manuscript and gets out, walking briskly down the street toward Gina's office. He takes in a deep breath in through his nose. It does feel nice to be outside. He hasn't set foot outside the loft in days, has been hold up in his office, tending to wounds that will only be exacerbated by leaving them alone the way he has been. If nothing else, the sky above the city is clear, and his choice of a plain grey flannel over a white t-shirt and denim jeans was a comfortable choice.

The feeling is quick to fade when he steps off the elevator and into the stuffy, odorless office suite of his publicist. He lets out a short huff resembling a very audible sigh of frustration, clearly audible to the young girl behind desk with a blue-tooth ear piece in her ear. She smiles a bright friendly smile as he slowly approaches the reception desk. "Hi, Mr. Castle. Looking for Gina?" She asks in an exuberant, high pitched voice.

"No," He sighs, "vice versa." He lifts up the thick stack of papers in the folder, spinning it back and forth in his hands.

The receptionist feigns being amused and lifts her hand to the door to Gina's office. "You can go right in."

He huffs again and steps away from her desk, facing Gina's door, only to look back to the young girl, no older than Alexis. "You wouldn't happen to have a big sword, maybe a shield I could borrow, would you?"

It's then the door flies open, his ex-wife already spitting fire at him. "Leave my secretary alone and get in here, Rick." She snaps, leaving the door open and going back into her office. He shakes his head and follows her in, closing the door behind him. "The first time you come by my office in months and you're torturing my secretary?"

"No, I'm torturing you _through_ your secretary. Anyone willing to be under your heel is either just as evil as you are or married to you, and she is too young for you." He says, bickering only he can with his ex-wife. But he offers her a temporary olive branch, lifting the tan envelope up in the air. "Finalized manuscript of _Frozen Heat,_ ready for print and consumption."

Gina raises a brow. "Hand delivered?" She asks, opening the envelope and plopping the thick stack of papers onto her desk.

"I needed out of the loft." He says casually, throwing himself down into an arm chair against the wall.

She flips through it, starting in the middle. "I called Martha." She says, thumbing through the pages. "She said you had some kind of falling out with Detective Beckett." She finishes, looking up to him.

"Why is it that the only people who want to talk about this are only the ones who shouldn't?" He snaps. First his mother, who was no help talking him off the ledge, which he ended up jumping from anyway, now his ex-wife. If there's anyone who isn't allowed to give him advice on this, it's her.

"To all my friends at the NYPD, thanks for keeping it real." She reads off the first page. "I'm sorry, Rick, I know you have creative authority, but I'm not printing that."

"What?" He asks, tossing his hands up off the arms of the chair he's in. He doesn't want to get into this now. He just wants a little longer to wallow in his own self pity. For once he doesn't want to put on a face. He just wants to move on, and that can't happen if everyone wants to talk about it.

Gina lets out a breath of frustration, turns and goes to the filing cabinet behind her, and after rifling through papers, pulls out another stack of papers, just as thick as the one he brought in with him, tosses it down and flips the first page over. "To KB, may you be forever more inspiring to me as you are now, Always."

He can physically feel the knife being stuck into his chest, the sharp pain of anguish he feels at Gina rattling off what was supposed to be his original dedication. "If this is you worried about me killing off Nikki Heat, you can rest easy. Just because I stopped following Beckett around doesn't mean I'm going to stop writing Nikki Heat."

Gina lets out another breath of frustration and comes around to lean against her desk, crossing one leg over another. "Believe it or not, Rick, I do still care about you."

"What does this have to do with anything, Gina?" He says with a shake of his head.

"Rick, I'm smart enough to know that you had strong feelings for her. I mean, you dedicated three out of your last four books to this woman, for god's sake. I didn't get that many and we were married."

"Two out of four. The dedication is final." He says seriously, leaning forward and bracing himself with his arms on his knees.

"Look, I don't know what happened between you two, and frankly, I'd like to keep the details as fuzzy as possible... but I know what you look like when you get your heart broken, Rick. This is different."

"It is _not_." He weakly defends with a chiseled jaw and furrowed brow, not raising his voice enough to make it sound believable even to his own ears.

"Rick, you showed up at our divorce proceedings with a Russian ballerina on your arm. And when you divorced Meredith, you showed up with _me_ on your arm. I know the show you put on to try and fool yourself into thinking that everything is just fine with you, but... now it's like you're not even putting up a fight."

"Maybe I've grown up." He defends himself against her backward character assassination, leaning sideways with his palm pressing into his thigh.

"If you say so, Rick." Gina concludes, pushing off the edge of her desk and moving to the other side. "I'll give you till final release to decide on the dedication. If you really want me to go with what's in here, then I will."

Castle nods, honestly thankful that she didn't press the issue. He stands up and starts toward the door. Maybe now he'll just wander around the city, see if Alexis wants to meet him at a movie or something.

"But Rick," She calls after him when he's just a few steps away from the door. He hardens himself, knowing he's going to regret not just walking out the door after being the slave to his gentlemanly morals that he is and hearing her out. "If she can make _you_ grow up, then I'd keep her around if I were you."

He snorts feigned hatred and pulls open the door, turning back to shoot one more quip at her before he departs her office. "If you were me, my books would suck."

* * *

Outside, Beckett waits, leaned up against a lamp post with her arms crossed.

After going to the loft, she had a sunken feeling when Martha told him that he was out, and was about to go back to the precinct before going to Burke's to check on the case, until Martha told him he was dropping off his finalized copy of his latest book at Gina's. She waits outside, the sight of the woman still leaving a rotten taste in her mouth after last time. Martha seems reluctant to tell her where he was, and even more skittish when she asked if anything was wrong with Castle. Martha just leapt out of the way with a quip, saying 'you know how he is'.

She misses him. Something is clearly going on with him. He wouldn't go down to face Gina in person unless he really had to. She's worried that she was right, and wasn't just saying it to temporally get Lanie off her back about the issue, and that the bombing case actually _had_ affected him. She didn't notice until the past couple of days how slow, dull, and quiet the precinct is without him there. How... hallow it all feels.

Once she sees the glass doors of the office building open in front of her, she looks up, a smile bursting onto her face. His casual look is so refreshing, he just looks so relaxed. "Hey." Beckett calls, pushing off the lamp post and taking a few steps toward him.

He seems taken aback by her, but it doesn't waiver the joy she feels in seeing him again. "Beckett." He says coldly. "What are you doing here?" What throws her is that it sounds like an accusation, not a question, and it feels like a punch in the gut.

Her smile is quick to fly off her face. "Martha told me where I could find you. You haven't been returning my calls."

He knots his brow together in one straight line, "If it makes you feel any better, I don't return Gina's calls either." He replies, drifting off to the side and starting down the street.

The insult he just hurled at her doesn't go over her head, but goes right to her heart, and she quickly figures out that he's clearly upset about something. But she quickly steps forward and reaches for him, her fingers touching his elbow. "Castle, I haven't seen you in a week. I've been calling you, texting you, and now I have to shake down your mother to find out where you are? What's going on?" She asks, anger unwillfully seeping into her voice at the sudden realization that he's been avoiding her. Her first knee jerk reaction to a scenario she thought would require another emotion entirely.

He turns to face her fully, his expression still hard, blank, with a heavy undertone of anger. "I guess I just couldn't remember." He starts, his expression breaking with a raised brow. His eyes are so... dull. "Must have been the trauma." His expression hardens again, "But you know how that is."

As he walks off, she's shaking. She can feel her heart erratically pound in her chest, her skin feeling slick and slimy as a cold sweat breaks out over her, her lungs not letting her draw in a satisfying amount of breath. It takes only seconds to put everything in place. The warm coffee that was sitting steaming on her desk, Esposito telling her that Castle had just left, what she said to the pickpocket, the momentary break in her self control as she was prying a confession out of a teenager that she didn't even get with it.

The first full thought that goes into her brain, she turns and sees his broad shoulders walking down the street toward his silver Lexus. "Castle!" She calls after him, jogging to catch up to him. Once she's just a few feet away she slows to a walk, "Castle, will you please wait?"

"Wait..." He says, sounding as if it was coupled onto a bitter chuckle. He turns, his face conveying soft anger, Castle being the only one who can make her feel like that. "How long this time? Three months? A year?" Her brain tries to interpret what he's saying, but her heart is telling her exactly what he means. She's just not ready to face what she knows he means. "I'll tell you what," he starts again, turning to continue walking back to his car, but stops after he's a few more steps away from her, "call me in four years and I'll see where I am."

Her heart is pounding in four different places inside her chest, but her shaky legs are already running to catch up to him as he reaches his car. "Rick, at least give me a chance to explain myself!" She pleads, her voice betraying her by cracking near the end of her plea.

He stops and turns on a heel to face her. "I did! Every single morning. You've had a thousand chances to explain yourself, Beckett, and you didn't."

"Well, I'm taking it _now!"_ She says, just now realizing that she's practically begging him in the middle of the street, but is too far in to stop, or care.

"It doesn't _count_ now, Beckett. You would only be explaining now because you _have_ to, not because you want to. I'm not doing this anymore, Kate. I can't just stand here and wait for you anymore." He pleads right back, quickly going to the driver side of his car.

But something else breaks past his words that were choking her to death. "So, you're just giving up?"

That stops him. He looks off to the side before shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders. "What is there to give up?"

He doesn't give her a chance to respond, just climbs into his car and quickly pulls off the curb, leaving her with shuddering breath, blurry vision, and shaky limbs.


	3. Chapter 3

She tears a hole in the tissue that's in her hand, ripping the thin fabric with the sad, nervous twitch her forefinger and thumb are making. She has her legs curls up in the chair, feeling small, and she hasn't spoken a word since she arrived. She can't admit to herself that she's heartbroken, she doesn't know if she has that right, therefore doesn't know if she has the right to admit that she hurts... all over.

And a part of her knows that it was this kind of hurt that was stopping her from taking that plunge in the first place.

It's like the rock that used to be her heart is now sitting in her stomach, the tears that she wants and knows are going to flow are stuck in her throat, the blood in her veins feeling like it's struggling to course. "Castle found out." She struggles, her eyes down toward her thighs.

Dr. Burke narrows his eyes toward her, slowly twirling his pen in between in fingers, and waits her out.

"That I've been lying..." The tears don't burn as she feels them spill over her eye lashes, "about my shooting."

Her mind keeps imagining him in observation, watching her go after Bobby, then imagining how much it must have... shattered him to hear her admit that she could remember every single second of when she was lying in the grass, with him cradling her, pleading with her to stay. Then she replays his words. _"I love you, Kate."_ She remembers exactly how they sounded, exactly what inflection he used, the look in his eyes. But that still doesn't extinguish her doubts, her fears of what they meant, or didn't mean. If anything, the feeling as if he's whispering them in her ear right next to her only serve to fan the patina of doubt that they seem to come with.

"And... when you say found out..." Burke prompts her.

The rock in her stomach churns, "I was interrogating a suspect, and he tried to say he didn't remember what I needed to know. I didn't know Castle was watching from observation when I told him that I remembered being shot."

Burke clicks his pen and puts his notepad on the table next to his arm chair. "We never have talked about what Castle said that day. Do you think you're ready?" He asks, interlocking his fingers together and putting them in his lap.

Her throat quivers as she as if to swallow the audible part of her tears. "No..." She mutters, lethargically shaking her head and enlarging the hole in the tissue she needs but hasn't even bothered to use. "But I need to." She adds after Burke waiting her out. That's why she's made the progress she has. All he does is get her to admit that she needs to put her pieces back together, and then makes her do it herself. "I wasn't ready to hear that."

"Would you be ready now?"

That catches her attention. She lifts her head and looks up to him. She shrugs her shoulders. "I don't know." She admits, being honest. "I'd like to think that I would be, but I wouldn't. I wouldn't want to lose what we have."

"Is that how you feel now?"

She rages inside her, battling emotions and neither side winning. "Yes." She finally admits. What they have together now... what they _had_ was safe to her. One of the few things she could count on to be good in her life. No real drama, no real strings attached, no obligations, no hurt feelings. "He's just supposed to be..." She starts, rocking her head off to the side as she lets her gaze fall out the window.

"Be what?" He asks, not in a way that says for her to continue, but that he wants a real answer.

"My partner?" She answers, as if asking permission if that's the right answer. "My friend... just... be there to... I don't know, ease the burden."

"Is that what he's _supposed_ to be... or what you _want_ him to be?"

She knows she would be lying to herself if she answered the way she wants to. "What do you mean?" She asks, putting her attention back on the tissue in her hands, that she finally decides to use and presses it just on the corners of her eyes.

"When you say that he's supposed to be your partner, what you're saying is you _need_ him to be your partner. But Kate, what do you want him to be to you?"

Kate closes her eyes, feeling her arms snake themselves around her, grasping her forearms before bracing one of her shoulders. "I... something... something more."

"Just remember what we've talked about, Kate. When your mother died, you only went after the things you needed. You convinced yourself that what you needed is to get justice for her, that you believed that's what you wanted, and Castle has done that."

She nods, "He dug up my mothers case, helped me get this far, and now I feel I need him to help me finish it. But..."

"But now..." He starts for her.

She looks out the window again and searches her heart. "Now he's... he's something more to me now."

"But there's something holding you back." He states.

She sniffles, dabs her nose with her torn tissue and looks down to her lap. "When he told me he loved me that day... he sounded honest and... like he meant every word, but..." Her heart breaks, the first real feeling she feels out of it since all this started as the next admission forms in her mind. "But I had just been shot." She says, her hand pressing against the scar on her chest. "I was lying on the ground with a bullet inside of me and he made it about himself." She argues, sad, desperate anger seeping into her soiled voice, the direction intended, she doesn't bother to find out before she continues. "He wasn't telling me because he actually loved me. He was making something tragic that happened to _me_ about himself when he said that."

Burke's brow perks and head tilts downward. "You're afraid he didn't really mean it."

Her heart goes hot stone again and sinks back down into her upset stomach. "He wouldn't have said it any other way. He thought I was dying. If he had actually managed to take that bullet for me, and it was him instead of me, I might have said the same thing." She weakly says, knowing that it's most likely not true.

"Would _you_ have meant it?"

Her mind flashes an image of him sitting in the chair beside her desk at the precinct that she's labeled as his, a boyish smile dancing across his face as he looks at her with that bright, blue twinkle in his eye, looking as if he's just the happiest being around her. "Yes."

"So... isn't it safe to say that he did too?"

She shakes her head, her lack of faith not in him, but herself. Or... "If I..." She sniffles again as she tries to regain herself, "if I throw myself into a relationship with him, I would give it my all. I would devote myself to him because he deserves someone who would do that for him. I would do what I felt I haven't been able to with everyone else and I would _try._ But..."

"Something else is stopping you."

She nods sadly, another wave of fresh tears falling down her lashes. "He's been divorced twice." She admits, looking at Burke over her tears. "Marriage... to me, is supposed to be forever. It's supposed to be a promise you never break. But if he can make that promise to two other women and go back on them... I've tried so hard to be open to him, and I know that if I were to make that promise to him, and he goes back on them the same he did with Meredith and Gina..." Her throat closes, "I don't think I could pull myself out of that."

Burke's brow knits together, "Have you asked him about his divorces?"

She pauses before shaking her head, dabbing her eyes with the useless tissue in her hands. "No."

"So why are you so certain it was him?"

Maybe she's been afraid to look at it from anyone else's perspective. "Left over from when we first started working together." She says, thinking back to his gruff, playboy self. "He was a different person back then, and when I found out that he'd been been through two divorces... with the way he was, it stuck with me that it was something he did."

"But you don't know that for sure, Kate. Divorce can be very complicated, especially if his daughter is involved." He says, trying to even the playing field for her partner.

She feels a smile prick at the edges of her mouth, but it feels alien. "He's an amazing father." She says with a sad smile, looking up to Burke again. "It's the first thing that convinced me he wasn't the person he showed he was. The way he is with Alexis, how caring he is, how quickly he puts her before himself... that's who he really is underneath all the... show."

"And you trust the person you know he is?"

She smiles warmly again, but then knowing it doesn't matter anymore at this point. "Yes." She shakes are head quickly again, trying to physically shake away the hope that she just felt blossoming in her system, making her feel almost normal again. "But it doesn't matter now."

"And why is that?" He asks, not curious, but challenging.

"I spoke to him an hour ago. That's where he told me he knew. He told me that he's waited too long for me, that..." She sucks in a stuttering breath, not ready to break... just yet. Not here. "That he can't do it anymore... that he was giving up." She wraps her arms around her legs and hugs them tighter against her chest before smothering her arms between herself. "I waited too long... I know that now. Just... excuse after excuse of why I couldn't just give him a chance yet."

"Those excuses were real, Kate."

"So was he." She adds, defending him and tearing herself in the process. If nothing else, she deserves it. "I broke his faith in me. He told me that there was nothing left between us to save. And if he's giving up on us... so do I. For my own sake."

"Is that really what you want?"

"No." She says, with another sad shake of her head. "But I have to. I can't force him to give me another chance, I've asked him to do that too many times. I don't think he could bring himself to do it again after what I did. So at this point, I have to give him up while I'm still able to pull myself out of this. He's given up on me..." She closes her eyes and closes the door on the part of her that feels all of this, icing herself over. "So I have to give up on him."

She stands up, feeling like a walking piece of cold iron, and heads for the door.

* * *

 **A/N: Chapter kind of short... and hard to read. I understand. I had no idea that you guys would have a hard time with the last chapter until the reviews started coming in. Thank you for reading! I wanted to devote a chapter to a conversation between Beckett and Burke without tainting it with any other outside voices. Thanks for your support. :)**


	4. Chapter 4

"He won't talk to you?"

"No, Dad, I tried." She answers in a low voice, pushing her half full plate away from her. She can't bring herself to eat anything. "He said that he couldn't wait anymore." She feels sick. She invited her dad over to bring her comfort, to help make her apartment feel less empty, to just be around someone who loves her. And to an extent, it has worked. He came over and made dinner while she just sat on the couch and enjoyed having her father around for a while. They don't see each other enough.

They sat down over dinner and she explained the situation with Castle. She knows that he's fond of Castle. In fact, Castle is probably the first man in her life that he has approved of on any level. But she knows that he tries not to get involved in her love life, a policy left over from her mother. She overheard them one night arguing about it, and heard her mother say that if they trusted her to make the right decision, then she would. It was their own way of letting her form her own judgments. But that didn't stop her mother from telling her what was important.

And she's respected that her dad has adhered to that rule, even after she was murdered.

"So... what are you going to do?" He asks, pushing his own plate aside and leaning forward on his forearms.

She shakes her head, not really feeling anything. She's felt numb since she left Burke's office. "Move on."

"Are you sure that's what you want?"

"It's what he wants, Dad." She answers in a low, steady, robotic voice. "And giving that to him is the least I could do."

She hears her dad let out a sigh, sees him nod his head and avert his eyes. He stands up and starts collecting his plate, but she raises her hand to stop him. "Don't worry about it, Dad. I'll take care of it." She says with an honest smile, which feels nice. It feels good to be able to smile and not fake it. It put her in a better... warmer place to have him here and take care of her the way he did.

Just as he's setting his plate back down on the table, there's a knock on her door. It sounded more rapid and forceful than a normal knock on her door. Her brow scrunches together as she stands up to answer it. Her dad is on his phone as she pads through her apartment to answer the door. And once she pulls it open, she's pushed out of the way as her visitor quickly moves past her and into her apartment. "Girl, I am going to throttle you like a..." Lanie stops in the middle of her living room, mouth agape as she realizes Beckett wasn't alone, "... chicken."

Beckett closes her door and moves up behind Lanie, lifting a hand up to her father, who's standing at the entrance to the dining room with a lifted brow. "Evening, Dr. Parish." He says, slipping his phone into his back pocket.

Lanie flashes a bright smile. "Hey, Mr. Beckett." She greets him in a loud, friendly tone, quickly walking up to him and putting her arms around his neck. Jim returns a polite smile and sheepishly hugs her back. "I didn't know you were here." Lanie adds as she steps back, looking over to Beckett with wide eyes.

"Actually, I was just on my way out." He says, pointing toward the door, his eyes falling lovingly on his daughter. Kate smiles warmly and feels honestly happy as he puts his arms around her and squeezes her tightly. "I love you, Katie."

She squeezes him back, reminding herself that despite it all, she will have her father. "I love you too, Dad."

"If you want to talk, you know where to find me." He says to her as he leans back with his hands on her shoulders. She smiles warmly and nods, still feeling Lanie's eyes burn through her despite the loving moment between her and her father. Jim looks back toward Lanie one last time and waves as he moves out of the door, Beckett closing it behind him.

"I don't want to hear it, Lanie." She sternly orders as she quickly goes past her and into the kitchen and to the cupboard where she stores her wine.

"I don't care. You're gonna hear it." She says back, following her.

" _No!_ Okay?" She pleads, being pushed too far. She didn't want to cry herself to sleep tonight as she thought she would end up doing. But by Lanie's tone of voice, she won't leave until that's already happening. "I can't hear this right now. How'd you find out, anyway?" She asks, not really knowing why she wants to know other than who to throw blame at, going about pouring a large goblet of wine. She held off while her dad was here.

"Alexis called me. Told me Castle has spent four days drowning himself in scotch in his office with the lights off, then asks me if I was aware of what happened between you two. I had to spend ten minutes trying to pry it out of her. She said she didn't know if it was her place, but she was worried about her dad."

Beckett finishes her wine that she was downing the entire time Lanie was talking. She takes a breath and sets her goblet back down and goes to refill it. "Nice to know someone was being considerate." She shoots over accusingly.

"Why didn't you tell me Castle finally said that he loved you?" She asks, accusatory tone gone, replaced by honest worry and caring, in Lanie's own way.

"Because he said it when there was a bullet in my chest!" She angrily answers, tossing her hand out to her side, the wine sloshing around in her glass. "Forgive me for thinking I had to put my life back together before dealing with it."

"So you lied to him?" Lanie asks, the accusatory tone returning while she throws out the bottle of wine she just grabbed.

"Lanie, I wasn't ready to hear that! When I woke up in the hospital, I just wanted things back to normal. I couldn't deal with Castle telling me that he loved me then." It isn't until she stops and looks down to her counter, leans against the island in her kitchen that she realizes she's on the defensive for something that she doesn't want to keep defending.

She comes down from her knee-jerk reaction of going on the defensive with Lanie and remembers the look in Castle's eyes last she saw him; dull, frustrated, tired, angry, everything her partner never was. Now is as good a time as any to start admitting that it was her that did that to him, and she was wrong.

"I never should have lied to him." She says with certainty, looking up to Lanie, who's looking at her with an arched brow. But her own expression feels stoned off. "I know that now, Lanie. I should have…" This has been wanting to come out. "I should have just told him." She says, her voice breaking. She turns away from Lanie with a hand covering her mouth and nose, taking a step away just as she feels her body wrack with a sob. "The man tried to catch a bullet for me, for god's sake! I could have at least been honest with him." She says, tears streaming down her face.

"Oh, honey…" Lanie starts, just as Beckett is struggling to take the first deep breaths needed to collect herself, the first few breaking, but by the end of it, she's back together when Lanie is by her side, rubbing her upper arm.

"He always had such solid faith in me." She continues, her voice steadier as she paces further into her kitchen, "There was no reason for him to doubt me, but… when he found out that I've been lying to him, the faith he had in me was gone."

"How do you know that if you haven't talked to him?"

"Because I tried, Lanie." She says, coming back to lean against her countertop. "I had to track him down coming out of Gina's office. He won't even let me explain. He said he wasn't going to wait anymore… that he was giving up."

Kate starts to run her finger absentmindedly between the spaces of the tile on her counter. There's a long silence that falls between her and Lanie before she chimes back in. "…And?"

Kate looks back up, "And what?"

Lanie shrugs her shoulders and rolls her eyes. "You're just gonna let him? "

"Lanie, if he doesn't want to be with me, I'm not going to force him to."

"Don't give me that, Kate."

"I can't force him to listen to me, Lanie."

"Beckett, how many times has that man gone behind your back and done something stupid?" Lanie asks. Beckett opens her mouth to retort, but Lanie continues on without her. "And how many times have you been so furious with him, you never wanted to see him again?"

"Lanie-"

"And how many times has he come back anyway?"

"This time is different!"

"The hell it is, Kate." Lanie cracks, sounding honestly mad at her at this point. "That man has gone against _your_ wishes and has fought for what you have, time and time again. What do you think would have happened if after the first time he betrayed your trust, he just listened to you and gave up?"

"Lanie, you didn't see him! He was so-"

"Heartbroken?" Kate opens her mouth to answer back, but Lanie is off again. "Castle has been chasing your coattails for four years, and you've let him get this close because despite all your kicking and screaming, you wanted him there. Now the one time the tables have turned, you won't do the one thing he's always done for you and call him on it. I mean, come on, it don't take a room full of detectives to figure out you're in love with the guy!"

"I d-"

"Don't _even_ say it, Kate." She stops her, pointing her finger. "I have seen guys come into your life before, and you didn't look at _any_ of them the way you look at Castle. You have to fight for that, Kate. If you're so ready to just let that slip away, then you don't even realize what you have a shot at."

She pauses, Lanie's harsh words penetrating the armor she's put on. It was still weak, but she was committed to keeping it on and intact. There's part of her that is saying to her that she's right, but it keeps getting silenced by the angry hurt in Castle's eyes as he left her standing on the street.

"Just do what he would do if you were to tell him to leave you alone." Lanie says, grabbing the bottle of wine again, putting the cork on and throttling the bottle's neck as she turns to walk out the apartment.

"And do what?"

"Don't listen."

* * *

Castle lets out a sigh, feeling… awful, to simplify it. But he's brought out of it by the sight of his daughter coming down the stairs. "Hey Dad." She says gingerly.

Castle smiles brightly as Alexis comes into the kitchen. "Hey, pumpkin." He greets her, opening his arm to her. It's the first time he's felt like his normal self when his beautiful daughter wraps her arms around his waist and squeezes him, pressing her cheek into his chest.

"Feeling better?"

He looks down to her with a raised brow. "Why, you hungry?"

Alexis looks down to the stove in front of them, then over to the counter, stepping back once she examines the scene. "You're putting Doritos in scrambled eggs, Dad."

He shrugs his shoulders and steps around her to put the eggs away. "We were out of cheese."

Alexis purses her lips and shakes her head as a knock on the door rings through the loft. "I'll get it." Alexis says.

"You sure you don't want some eggs?" Castle calls over to her, but he's answered by a shake of the head.

He turns back to the stove until he hears Alexis open the door and announce who it is. "Mr. Beckett…"

His whole system freezes, sending a cold ripple up his spine. He quickly spins around, seeing Beckett's father standing at the door, Jim's eyes boring into him. Once Castle looks at Jim, Jim's eyes go down to his daughter, making Castle hasten to greet him. "Hi Alexis." Jim says just as Rick comes up behind his daughter and pulls her into his side, with a smile nonetheless. It's then that Jim's eyes turn back up to him, "Hey Rick."

"Hey Jim. Uh…" He starts, wanting the situation that is unfolding to just end before it even starts. "Come on in." He offers anyway, stepping aside. "Alexis, will you give us a minute?" He asks, smiling down at his daughter with a raised brow.

Alexis smiles back and leans up, placing a quick kiss on his cheek. "Sure, Dad."

They both wait until Alexis is up the stairs to start, both watching, Rick with a smile at the thought of how much he loves his daughter. "It's been a while, Rick." Jim says.

Castle looks back over to Jim with a smile. "Yeah. Last time we saw each other was…" He starts to recall.

"The hospital, when Kate was shot." Jim says without reservation or hesitation.

Rick feels the light nature that this was starting with evaporate. "Yeah… that must have been hard." He starts, lifting his arm toward the kitchen, inviting him further in.

"You uh… you ever have to deal with monsters, Rick?" Castle is on the other side of the island when Jim finishes his question, with Jim coming to stand on the other side. Castle looks at him from across the island curiously. "In the closet? Under the bed?"

Rick smiles and nods his head. "Under the bed. She had me check for them every night."

"Now imagine you're on the other side of her bedroom door, knowing the monsters real and you can't get in." Jim says seriously, putting his hands on the counter.

"I understand, I… I couldn't imagine what I'd do if anything were to happen to Alexis." He says honestly, relating to him as only fathers can.

"You know… by instinct we're supposed to be able to protect our daughters. But… standing in the waiting room, not being able to do a damn thing, I wouldn't wish that kind of helplessness on anyone."

Rick nods, understanding completely. If something were to happen to Alexis like what happened to his daughter, he doesn't think he could handle it the way Jim did… if at all. "Listen, Jim… Beckett and I…"

"I had dinner with her tonight, Rick." Jim stops him, a firm look in his eyes. "She told me she was doing something I'd never heard her do." Rick stops the words that were forming in his head that would end this conversation, the part that is still in love with her honestly curious, his love for her betraying the part that wants to be done with her. "She said she was giving up."

And at that, Rick feels his heart sink. He doesn't know why. It's what he wanted, wasn't it?

"Now I don't usually get involved in my daughter's personal life." He says, lifting his hand up to him and looking off to the side. "It's a promise I made to my wife to trust her to make the right decisions. But when she explained what happened, and then told me that she was planning on just walking away… I couldn't just sit by and let my daughter throw something away because of her mother's bullheadedness."

Rick can't think of anything else, other than the thought of her just… giving up like that. "She said that?"

Jim just shakes his head and continues. "She said that you wouldn't even hear her out."

"What if I can't hear what she has to say?" He asks, defending himself.

Jim angrily shakes his head and pushes off the counter. "Give me a break, son." His throat prepares to keep defending his decision, but he doesn't get the chance. "You're upset because you weren't the first thing on her mind after being the victim of a sniper that they never caught? You didn't think that she just had to get back on her feet before she faced a partner who loved her?"

His nerves stand up on end at that. "She told you what I said?"

Jim stops his pacing and narrows his eyes. "She didn't have to, you jumping in front of a bullet did that for me."

"But she didn't have to lie to me for this long!" He says, making a stronger attempt to defend himself against this onslaught than he thought he was capable of. Jim looks at him with his mouth agape, "I would have understood if she told me she wasn't ready. She could have told me after disappearing for three months and not calling me."

"So now you're blaming her for not thinking of you when she was recuperating? That's a new kind of selfish."

"I-" He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "I should have been there for her."

"No, you shouldn't have." Jim says seriously, staring Rick down.

"I could have helped her. I _wanted_ to help her."

"It's easy to think that now, but you weren't there, Rick. The sight of my daughter sprawled out on her bedroom floor, crying her eyes out because she was too proud to ask for my help going to the bathroom is something I'll remember for as long as I live, and I hope that it's something you never have to go through with anyone you love. And if you want to blame anyone for her not calling, you can blame me." He says, throwing a hand in the air toward him.

Rick pauses, standing up straight. "What do you mean?" He asks softly.

"I'm the one that told her not to call you because I wanted her to focus on getting better, and with the way you were acting that day at the hospital, I didn't think it would be good for her."

"You… you told her not to call me?"

"I told her that recovering should be her primary focus, and she agreed. You would have done the same thing if you were in my position, and you know it."

Rick breathes a long sigh out through his nose and braces himself against the counter again. "She still could have told me. Maybe not then, but if it was this easy for her all this time to look me in the eye and lie about me telling her I loved her, then I don't know if she's who I thought she was."

"So now you're ready to let someone who just a year ago you were willing to take a bullet for just walk away? You won't even hear her out?"

"It's not that easy."

"Look Rick," Jim says, coming back to the counter and leaning his hands against it, taking a breath to calm himself, "I'm not saying you have to be in a relationship with her, or even forgive her… but for god's sake, be a man and hear her out."

Jim presses off the counter and heads for the door, leaving Rick silent, and ashamed. He watches out of the corner of his eye as Jim heads for the door, but looks back up when he sees Jim stop and turn back around.

"You're a good man, Rick, and you're the first person to make her happy since her mother died. I don't want her to see go back to the person she was before you came along. She doesn't deserve that."

Rick simply nods silently and watches Jim go out the door of the loft. He closes his eyes and lets out a long, deep breath, feeling a hard mixture of guilt, misdirected anger, and residual heartbreak. "Alexis." He calls up.

It's just a moment before she appears at the top of the stairs, "Yeah, Dad?" She asks softly.

"I know you heard all that." He tells her, looking up to her.

Alexis starts down the stairs and goes over to him, putting her arms around her father again and laying her head down on his chest, while he pulls her in and rubs her arm. "He really laid into you."

Rick pauses, his hand stopping on Alexis's shoulder. "I just remembered Beckett's father is a lawyer."

* * *

 **A/N: Hope you guys enjoyed. I'm glad to see mixed reviews coming in for this story. I always thought the writers approach to this in the show was way too 2D. Let me know what you guys think. :)**


	5. Chapter 5

She feels uneasy, but Alexis said to let herself in.

She hesitates, standing in the hall outside of loft, staring at the metal number one marking his door. Her breath feels caught in her throat just imagining him on the other side the way he always is when she enters his home, smiling, warm, gracious, welcoming, happy. She closes her eyes and steels herself, grabbing the knob and slowly opening the door. She steps forward and she slowly eases her way inside, searching for signs of life in the spacious apartment.

She's about to call out and announce her presence, but the words stop dead in her throat when sound comes drifting from his office, sounding like music. She closes the door behind her as she quietly moves through his loft, briefly thankful she went with sandals and not heels. It's only when she just steps off the rug in the living room that she feels her heart seize up at the sound of what song he is listening to.

 _"…lady with the mystic smile."_

It's their song.

" _Is it only 'cause you're lonely they have blamed you?"_ Cole's voice goes through her and she closes her eyes, her lips moving to the lyrics, but now deciding to softly whisper them to herself, not audible to anyone but herself… she hasn't heard this song since before her mother died. She softly pads toward Castle's office. Almost like fate that he played this song, at this moment.

She stops and says the next lyrics to herself. "Many dreams have been laid at your doorstep, they just lie there, and they die there." She sings in an inaudible whisper. She's always loved that part of this song the most.

She lets the song finish as she continues into his office, seeing him out of the corner of her eye, laying across the couch off to the left, his leg hanging off the edge with his other propped up against the arm, pinching the bridge of his nose, dark denim jeans and a black sweater with the sleeves rolled up. Right as Nat King Cole's voice fades in the song, she speaks. "That was my parent's song."

At the sound of her voice, Rick springs up from the couch below the skylight in his office, stunned in silence. Beckett looks over to him, a warm smile gracing her features that brings her a confident hope, while Rick quickly reaches to the remote on the couch to turn the stereo off before the next song starts, all without looking away from her as she stands at the entrance to his office.

He is still angry at her, he's been thinking about it all morning, mulling over what Jim said to him the night before; what was right in what he said and what wasn't. But now, seeing her, even after all she's done to him, still sends butterflies raging inside him.

"My dad sang it to her right before he proposed." She continues with a soft smile. "She always told me that she only said yes to get him to stop." She averts her eyes and cranes her neck, lost in memory.

He pauses, only to let her be lost for a moment before he leans forward. "Beckett, what do you want?" He asks, his voice low and gruff.

She looks up to him, her smile softer but still there. Her eyes drift off and she pushes a small shrug with her shoulders. "A hug…"

That catches him off guard. His breath still catches in spite of him trying to squash the butterflies that only went rabid at the sound of that. He's silenced, but reminds himself not to get sucked in. He can't remind himself why though. A selfish and unhealthy addict to the way she makes him feel, even if she isn't his, the way she seems to just make his whole body flutter is a feeling he's become willing to put himself through hell for. But the side effects have finally caught up to him, it seems.

"There's just something about the way you do it that makes me not want it to stop." She explains, her eyes falling down to the floor, mind going back to the few times he's had his arms around her that didn't directly involve death.

He lets a breath go from his tight lungs, finally forming a response that seems suitable. "Well, going by what happened the last time I had my arms around you, I think it's safe to say that's not a good idea." He tried to make it sound hurtful, but it backfired. It sounded self-deprecating.

But she huffs a breathless chuckle, still not looking up from the floor, but shifting her weight to the side. "Yeah, we only seem to find ourselves in each other's arms when we're in danger."

And whose fault is that? "Beckett…" He starts, deciding to just be honest with her. "I don't know if I'm ready to talk about this." He admits.

But she doesn't blink when she looks back up to him, doesn't even flinch, and just keeps a soft, almost confident smile lifting the sides of her lips. She looks… angelic. "I'm not asking you to talk." She says, the shake of her head causing her curls to bounce carelessly. He hardens himself at that. She's sucked him in like this before, probably unintentionally. "I'm asking you to listen."

Judging by that… it should be easy. And the one thing that Castle couldn't refute from Jim's visit is that he should at least hear her out. If nothing else to end it honorably.

"I did the same thing for you when you first dug up my mother's case, I didn't want to but I gave you a chance to explain." Hurt that she's throwing that in his face, he at least understands where she's coming from when making the point. "The least you could do is show me the same respect. I'm not asking a lot, I just need you to listen."

He cranes his neck, closes his eyes, and admits… if anything, she's right and does at the very least deserve a chance to explain. He stands up and takes a few slow steps, turning and standing in front of her, leaning back against his desk and crossing his arms, blanking his expression as she faces him. The smile fades then.

"You know, at first I wasn't lying." She says, lifting her arms out to her side for a moment with a shrug. "I couldn't remember anything… for the first few seconds. But once I regained myself, and started running it through my head…" She shakes her head and looks away, "I had to play it back in my mind… at least a dozen times just to make sure it was real. My dad was the first one to see that I was awake and I asked him what he remembered… and once he said that all he saw was you tackle me…"

He stays silent, still not hearing her explanation, and doesn't know if she'll get to one.

She closes her mouth on a soft breath, "If I were a stronger person, like you, I could have faced it. But Castle, I'm not you. When I heard what you said, I didn't… I didn't have the courage to just face it. Because admitting to you that I just wasn't ready would have meant admitting a lot more things that I couldn't handle dealing with all at once. And if anyone can understand how hard it is for me to face things like that, it's you."

He cranes his neck and averts his eyes, angry with her that she… at the very least just kept all this from him. Because he doesn't understand why it's so hard for her. Or… maybe he doesn't understand why it would be so hard for her to accept him. If it was anyone else in his shoes, he would probably understand. But it's not.

"Lying to you was a mistake, Castle… and I'm sorry." She says, her voice softening at her apology. It feels like her words pierce him. "I knew as soon as I lied to you that I would eventually have to tell you the truth if we were ever to…" She shakes her head and looks away, "to be anything besides just partners. I'm not trying to excuse what I did to you, Rick."

His heart clenches at her words. He's never heard his first name tumble so softly from her lips before. He's finding it harder and harder to tell himself to resist that feeling. He can't get trapped by this again. He owes it to himself to put up some sort of a fight.

"But after my mother's death, I was shattered. It… destroyed me, but I managed to get back up. But my therapist has-"

"Therapist?" He asks, question getting a voice the instant he hears what she says, looking up to her after forcing himself not to look at her.

She smiles and nods, then continues, "He's helped me see that I pushed everyone away to avoid ever being hurt like that again. But then you came along and you just… you kept going. And at some point, I wasn't pushing anymore. But I still didn't want to get close to you. I wouldn't let myself take that risk. And when you said that you loved me, you asked me to take that risk and I just wasn't ready."

He's heard what she said, but still can't bring himself to let it sink in, still reeling from what she just told him. It's the missing piece.

"But…" He looks back up to her after letting his eyes wander and mind drift, "I'm in a place now where I can admit that I want to be." His breath is getting quicker, less satisfying as it leaves his lungs. "I know it's probably unfair to ask you to wait any longer, but… I want to give you a chance to at least think it over, so… if you're willing to give us a shot, you can meet me at the sandwich shop just down the street from my apartment at seven. If you show up, then we can take it from there. If you don't, then… then I'll know where you stand."

She seals her lips together and looks Castle in the eye, who is continuing to stare at her with a half lidded gaze with his mouth hanging slightly open. She nods and looks down as she turns, putting a hand on the door frame to his office as she makes her way out of the loft. "Kate…" He calls to her softly, just above a whisper.

Her heart leaps at the sound him using her first name like that. He probably has no idea what that does to her. She looks over her shoulder with a raised brow.

"You never told me you were seeing a therapist."

She smiles and nods in a small motion. "I've been seeing him since my shooting."

Beckett blinks, smiles just a bit wider, taps her hand against the door frame and turns out of the loft, going out the door without another word.

"She's been seeing a therapist."

* * *

He comes out of the closet, just buttoning up the last two buttons, going with dark blue, and one of his nicer black jackets, going to the mirror to make sure his hair is where he wants it to be. After gently smoothing over his hair line with his middle finger, he takes a deep breath and goes out into the living room, finding his mother and Alexis at the counter.

"Well, well…" His mother calls, turning around to face him in the kitchen. He hasn't told them anything. He's been too… preoccupied by the whole thing. That was the missing piece. It all fits now. " _Where_ are you off to looking so stylish?"

"I am going to meet Beckett." He says, going into the kitchen's junk drawer to find an empty thumb drive.

"Really?" She asks knowingly.

"She came by today, and I heard her out." He explains, in a rush as he goes back into his office and opens up his laptop, pressing the small thumb drive into the side. "She explained things, and she said that she was ready to finally give this a shot."

"And… you're ready to just forgive her?"

"I never said that." He says, looking up to her, seeing Alexis standing at the entrance to his office as he sits down to download the file onto the empty thumb drive.

"So… what exactly are you going to meet her for?"

"She gave her side, I'm giving mine. And then we're going to take it from there."

"But Dad, didn't Beckett lie to you? I thought that's what this whole thing was about, that you told her how you felt and she said she didn't remember." Alexis interjects herself.

"Yes." He says with the file downloaded. "But she's been seeing a therapist." He adds as he pulls out the thumb drive. He stands up and looks at his family. "For a year." He says with an open smile.

"Well that's understandable, dear, but why are you so suddenly so eager to take her back?"

He gets the words caught in his throat, but sticks to "You wouldn't understand."

"I wouldn't understand, or you don't want me talking you out of it?"

"It's just…" He starts, about explain something that sounds lunatic.

"Darling, I understand you love her, but I think you just need to-"

"I've written her story, mother!" He exclaims. "And Beckett going to therapy is the missing piece of the puzzle. I didn't know until this morning. This is exactly how I would write it."

"Richard, what are you talking about?" Martha asks with a confused shake of her head.

"There's always a small, minuscule detail that writer's leave out of their stories. On its own, it doesn't do much, but put into the story, it makes everything else fit. And Beckett going to see a therapist for this past year is the missing piece to this story, mother."

Both Alexis and Martha squint at him.

"I know how it sounds, okay? But if she's been going to see a therapist, that means that, at the very least she's been making an effort to make this happen. And now that she feels she's ready, I'm not missing that chance, and I'm going to do all I can to make sure I don't screw it up." He says, closing his laptop and moving around his desk to walk out the door just in time to be fashionably late. "That's why I'm telling her about Smith." He adds as he passes them.

"What?" Martha asks him, quickly coming around and grabbing his arm. "Now Richard, I know you're ready to jump into this with both feet like you do with everything else, but stop and think about what you just said."

"I can't expect her to stop keeping secrets from me if I've been lying to her too."

"You know that that is different, Richard. Her telling you the truth doesn't put your life in danger."

"I'm doing this right, mother. I've made up my mind." He looks down to her, certain of himself, and steps around her. "I'm telling her everything."

* * *

 **A/N: I didn't get too many views on the last chapter. I'm thinking I just updated it too fast. So if you haven't seen that go back and read it.**

 **And in response to the criticisms I received for the last chapter, I never said that the things that were said were final, that Castle agreed with them, or that they wouldn't be making an appearance again. Keep that in mind and let me know. :)**


	6. Chapter 6

She sucks in a deep breath, the aroma of the bread and condiments filling her senses, then lets it out nervously. Pushing up the sleeve to her grey long sleeve shirt to look at her watch, a shutter of distress goes through her when she sees it's now fifteen minutes past seven.

There's a thousand questions swirling in her mind, and a thousand and one answers to all of them. It's only fifteen minutes, and this is Castle she's waiting for. She really doesn't know what's going to happen once he shows up… if he does at all. She closes her eyes and swallows that thought. But every other date, if that's what they're calling this, she's been on, she knew what was going to happen. There was no unknown because she knew how much she would let them in, how much she would let them know. None at all and not very much.

But Castle basically knows… everything already. Or it feels like it. The way he looks at her, sometimes it's like he's staring right past her defenses.

She pushes her sleeve up again and checks her watch, and sees that another five minutes has passed. She hangs her head and lets out a long sigh. "Am I too late for it to be fashionable?" A voice says to her, making her look up with an expectant look, feeling a smile explode onto her face and a lighter-than-air feeling envelope her chest.

"No, you're uh… you're right on time." She says to the handsome smirk Castle's flashing her, looking more pressed and dressed than usual. His black coat is actually buttoned tonight. He quirks his smile and pulls out the chair across from her at the small, round table as she leans forward nervously. "I feel a little under dressed now, Castle." She says, picking at one of the sleeves of her plain grey long sleeve t-shirts.

Castle stops adjusting his chair and looks up to her with a raised brow. "Five seconds into a relationship and you're already trying to get me to take my clothes off?" He jokes, then shakes his head looking down to his lap, "And here I thought you wanted to get to know me a little."

She perks her lips to try and fight her smile, but she's losing. His humor being a foam tipped sword at the fact that he just said to her that he considers this a start to a relationship. It doesn't go over her head, but it doesn't stun or scare her as much as it normally would. Her smile softens and she looks across the table to him. "I'm glad you came, Castle." She says softly, her hand wanting to reach out and grab his hand.

He lets out a breath and seems to harden, straightening up and leaning forward. "Beckett…" He starts, looking down between them, "I don't want any illusions as to why I came here." He says seriously, discharging the electric air between them. Her smile falls as he looks up with a serious look in his eye. "I'm still angry, Beckett. And even though I heard what you said, I still don't understand how you could lie to me." He says with a shake of his head, but softening his expression with an arched brow.

His pause is telling her to try and say something, "Castle… I…" She falters.

"I would have understood… Kate." He starts, and she can feel herself relax, just by the way he said her first name. "If you had just told me that you weren't ready, or…" He looks over to the counter, neither of them having any interest in eating, "or even that you just didn't feel the same way, I would have understood. It would probably have wrecked me, but I would have understood."

"Rick, I thought that if I told you I just didn't remember that it…" She says, leaning back and looking away from him. He challenges her by narrowing his eyes and lowering his brow. "… That it would spare your feelings." His eyes narrow even more and his mouth falls open slightly, and she almost expected this angry shocked reaction. "But I was wrong." She says, almost pleads to him, but his expression doesn't change. "I should have just told you that I wasn't ready."

"Why?" He stops her. She looks back up to him and sees his eyes are still gleaming with anger. This isn't anything how she wanted this to go. "Why weren't you ready, Kate? After everything we've been through, we weren't you ready to just give me a chance?"

"I'm ready _now._ " She answers softly, extending her hand and placing it firmly on his folded hands.

His eyes fall down to her hand, but she remains focused on him. He lets out a soft breath and looks up to her again. "Do you remember when you first came back last summer? We were in your apartment, going over what we knew on the case and we were hitting a dead end. You said… that everyone was gone. I watched you… with tears in your eyes, say that you had no one." The anger in his eyes fades to very present hurt. "I was sitting _right_ there." He says with clenched teeth. "You looked _right_ past me, Kate."

Her heart feels like it's literally cracking. She feels hot tears burn in her eyes at just how much hurt he's been harboring because of her all this time. She just wants to reach back in time and wrap her arms around him then, because she remembers exactly the time he's remembering, and remembers exactly what she was thinking of, and it wasn't him. It was her case. She felt alone and abandoned by the world and her friends because she had nowhere to go, and he was just sitting there.

He was right there.

She lets her eyes fall shut and cranes her neck, still hanging onto his folded hands, her thumb somehow finding it in itself to caress his knuckles. Some pathetic attempt to show she's sorry, feeling she should stop because it's not nearly enough. And she does when she feels his hands move underneath hers, moving his fingers in between hers, catching her thumb with his. She looks up and sees his eyes down on her hand, sitting in the middle of the table.

"Why were you so afraid of telling me the truth… that you had lied to me?" He asks, his eyes not leaving their enjoined hands, his thumb starting to rub hers into his forefinger.

Focusing on the warm, tender feeling of him holding her hand the way he is, she allows it to bandage her guilt ridden heart. "I was afraid." She says, tears that didn't fall showing what's left of themselves in her voice.

"Of what?" He says after a pause.

"That… that maybe you didn't mean it, that maybe… maybe you said it just because I had been shot." She sees his eyes look up to her, but she doesn't look away from their hands, how perfect they look for each other. "It was either face the fact that you loved me and admit that I wanted to be with you, or face the fact that you didn't really mean it and still admit that I wanted to be with you."

Letting out a breath, he shakes his head and lifts up to look her curiosity in the eye. "Look, I know it wasn't the most… opportune time… to just pour my heart out like that." She looks up again sees a new kind of dark glimmer in his eye, certainty. "But that doesn't mean what I said wasn't true. And if I had to choose, I would rather tell you and at least have you hear it, than never be able to say it to you at all."

She feels warmth crawl up her chest, hope blossoming in her chest. He affirmed to her that, at the very least, felt it back then.

"But why couldn't you just face me, Kate? Why do you keep fighting this?" He asks, voice just above a whisper.

She sniffles, residual emotion still lingering in her senses. "Because I've never had this."

"Never had this or never wanted this?"

She shakes her head, not sure how to answer him honestly, because she honestly doesn't know. She doesn't know what this really is yet. All she knows is she wants it. "I don't know."

"Yes you do." He says, capturing her eyes again. "Kate, I've listened to you, sit two feet away from me and tell me that Josh wasn't what you were looking for. You said that you were tired of having one foot out the door. That you wanted someone that would be there for you, that you wanted someone that you felt you could just dive into it together. Those were your words."

"Are you afraid that I won't do that with you?" She asks, not attacking him for not believing in her, but honestly wanting to know if she can do it.

"Kate, you knew Josh wasn't what you were looking for, but you didn't fight him nearly as hard as you fought me."

She purses her lips and looks down, nodding her head. "Yes, I did." She says, remembering how her and Josh were together, if you could call it that. "Castle, by the time you and I kissed outside that warehouse, Josh was just an excuse. I mean, to his credit, he tried… a little. The little time we spent together and he wasn't asleep, he wanted to be that for me, but I just… put up that wall and he never bothered."

Castle has to stop his intense, raging, teeth grinding, seething hatred for that man stop from going to his hand that is currently being fiddled with, and squeezing into a tight, white knuckled fist. "So why did you wait till you got back from recovering to break up with him?"

She looks up to him with a knitted brow. "I didn't." Castle's own brow raises on one side. "Castle, I broke up with Josh right before I was signed out of the hospital. Why, did you…" Rick just lets out a breath through his nose and looks back down, having a sword fight with her thumb, but she picked up on what he thought. "You thought I spent my recovery with Josh?" After he had just told her that he loved her.

"At the time, I was focused on finding the person who shot you, until Gates showed up. After that, I had to distract myself so I started doing book signings again. But… yes, the thought crossed my mind."

"No… god, no." She says humorously. "Not after the way I heard he was acting."

"Someone told you about that?" Castle asks.

"My dad said he had to break you two up. He said you looked ready to punch him." She says on a chuckle. "He even said that Alexis went after him." She says, letting a smile blossom on her face. She looks up to him, but finds his expression walled off, then her smile starts to fall. "Castle, what happened?" She asks, curious for details from his perspective.

"Beckett, if Esposito wasn't holding him back, I would have put him through the wall." He says with a half lidded gaze, the motions he's making on her hand coming to a stop. "And if he even touched Alexis, I would have killed him." Beckett starts pulling back a bit, but not removing her hand from his soft grasp. "But I was just looking for someone to blame, and I've wanted to do that to Josh since the day I met him." She feels her smile fight to return at Castle's humorless crack as he continues. "Josh came out and I told him that I tried to get to you in time. But he shoved me and started to blame me, for bringing up your mother's case. He blamed me for you getting shot, and for Montgomery getting killed."

She feels… disillusioned, to say the least. All her dad told her was he got into it with Castle, not that he went and blamed her partner for something that he tried to talk her out of just the night before. The night when Castle did the one thing that Josh never did and pushed back against that wall, called her on everything, she remembers being so angry at him, but it's an anger she can't even try to justify at this point looking back. "He blamed you?"

"He wasn't the only one." He adds, looking down to their hands again, squeezing hers again as he fans her fingers out.

"Rick." She calls over. He looks up and she shoots her brow up at him, edging up to explain.

He just shakes his head. "He wasn't wrong, Kate." He says sadly.

She stops him from going down that road, trying to derail the train before it even starts down the tracks. "Yes, he was. Castle, it wasn't your fault. You didn't pull the trigger." She says and puts her other hand on top of the one she's already holding, and in a tone that says it should have been obvious.

"I put you in the crosshairs, Kate."

"But it was a risk that _I_ took, Rick. You didn't force me, I chose. You tried to talk me out of it, so you can't blame yourself. I won't let you."

Castle seals his lips together and breathes a short sigh.

His mind goes back to everything he was told. Not to waste another minute with someone he loves by his mother, to not let her waste any more time on this because they don't know how much longer they really have by her father when they first met each other. He looks back up to her, meeting her glossy eyes with certainty. "I don't want to waste any more time, Kate."

She feels her breath catch and her nerves prickle, caught off guard by his sudden shift in the conversation.

"I've waited long enough. _We've…_ waited long enough." He continues, moving to fold his fingers in together with her other hand as he pauses. "After everything we've put ourselves, and each other through, we owe it to ourselves to not let it all be for nothing. I know you heard me tell you I love you that day, and I know you've been lying about it, I accept that. But for once, my mother was right."

"What do you mean?" She barely finds the space to ask past the hammering lump in her throat that is her heart.

"Love is not a switch, and I can't just shut it off. I tried but I can't. And now, I want to make something of it." The look that's radiating from his eyes now is… he's looking at her so softly, so warmly, tenderly. "And if that scares you, I'm sorry, but I'm not waiting any longer."

There are a million words swarming in her mind, a thousand actions aching in her limbs, but her tongue is tied, and her blood is racing too fast to move. Because she knows the words forming on his lips as he takes his next breath.

"And you don't have a bullet in your chest now, so there's no excuse you can use to run away from this. But I love you, Kate… and I want to see where this diving board will take us, but I need to know… if you'll jump off of it with me."

Her breath is hard, hammering, and for once, she doesn't feel as if she's being pulled back, instead she's being launched forward. She's staring at him with an arched brow, wide, still glossy eyes, and an agape mouth. "How much of that did you have written down?" She asks, looking down to his lips.

"Actually, only about half." He says, which unlocks a bright, face splitting smile and a laugh, letting her head fall forward. "The other stuff was pretty good too, though, right?"

She flips her hair back as she looks back up at him. She pauses as she smiles over, looking into his eyes, showing him that there's not any doubt in her, "It was perfect, Rick."

He smiles lovingly over to her, squeezing her hands in his. "I guess I'll have to write down the rest, then."

* * *

 **A/N: Kind of a dual part chapter. Didn't want it to get too long, and it felt like the right place to end it.**

 _(Also, taking an informal poll: How many of you would support me upping the rating later on? If you want me to keep it rated T, I will write around it. But if you guys wants an explicit scene, I'll write them in [I can't stand stories that are rated M for just one scene]. Let me know in a comment below. And as always, thanks for your thoughts and reviews.)_


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: *This is a repost of ch 7, not a new chapter. Tech difficulties forced me to repost. Chapter 8 will be up later on this week***

* * *

"So, Castle…" She begins as they move back to their table after finally deciding to grab dinner while they're here. "Can I ask you something?" She asks casually popping one of her sun chips in her mouth.

"Sure." He asks, moving behind her to pull her chair out with one hand. She bites back the corners of her lips to fight her smile at his gesture, and sits down.

She waits until he sits back down across from her to begin. "What uh…" She says, picking up another chip, "what changed your mind?" She asks with feigned casualness as she throws the chip into her mouth.

"What do you mean?" He asks, his voice light and unknowing what she's asking.

She shrugs and continues to pick at her chips, "Well, when I first tracked you down outside Gina's office, you practically ran off. I didn't even get a chance to talk." She starts to explain, watching as he starts on his sandwich across from her. "But when I came by the loft this morning, you heard me out." She asks with a chip in her mouth, "So what changed your mind?"

He swallows the food with his fist covering his mouth. "You're father."

She chokes on the chip going down her throat, too late for it to be coughed up, but she manages to swallow it with the help of the bottle of water next to her. Once she regains her composure, Castle looks ready to leap out of his seat to aid her. After wiping her mouth with her napkin, she continues. "My what, now?"

Castle's brow knits together and his eyes wince. "Should I… not have told you that?"

"My _father_ came to see you?"

"Just to talk." He innocently shrugs.

"Well I didn't think you invited him over for a poker game, Castle." She sarcastically cracks. "Wha-why did he come to see you? When?" She should clear up that she's not upset with him, and she thinks Castle understands that by the look of hesitancy to start explaining.

"Last night around eight o'clock." He answers, leaning forward and shooting her a wondering gaze, silently asking her what's upsetting her. She releases a frustrated huff and throws herself back in her chair, her hands falling to her lap and shaking her head. "Is there something I'm missing?" He asks.

He can guess what happened, reading between the lines of the situation. Jim did say that he had dinner with her last night when he came by, she probably told him about what they were going through, and obviously didn't let her in on what he was planning on doing. He was so focused on what Jim said and why he said things that were clearly wrong, but wasn't allowed to get many words in edge wise, he didn't think of Beckett not knowing that Jim had stopped by, or what she would think of it.

Kate rolls her eyes up to the ceiling with a shake of her head, frustration still lightly venting itself out of her system. "So you only let me explain myself this morning because of something my dad said?"

"Well, it's-"

"What did he say?" She interrupts him.

Castle looks at her softly in wonderment, "Beckett, did I do something wrong?"

She shakes her head, "No, I'm not mad at you, Castle." He just keeps his gaze on her with a softly arched brow. She huffs out another short breath and looks down. There's a pause between the two of them, and Castle waits for her to continue, but he can tell that she's just getting caught in a riptide of throwing blame at someone who really doesn't deserve as much as he's probably getting.

"He said that you told him you were giving up." She looks back up to him then with desperate eyes. "He said he never saw you do that. He… reminded me that I was acting childish for not giving you a chance to explain. And at the very least, I had to agree with that part."

She lets out another breath and sits back up, pulling her chair back up to the table. "I was planning on it." She starts, gingerly moving her last few chips around in her tray. "I had every intention of just letting you go, of just walking away like you wanted me to." She admits softly, her voice low.

A thought crosses his mind that it's not what he really wanted, but he knows that's the voice that's speaking now, and it's not the voice of heartbreak. Because if he had his way, he knew that even then, it would be to punish himself, if not her in the process. It was just spitefulness getting its way by just allowing her to walk away and forbidding her from explaining at first.

"But…" She sighs, finally choosing a chip out of the last three sitting next to her sandwich, "leave it up to Lanie to stand up for you."

"Lanie?" He asked, wondering how she got mixed up in all this.

Beckett nods and pops the last few chips in her mouth at once, "She came by right as my dad was leaving. She stormed in and basically told me to act like you would in this situation."

"And… how is that?"

She raises a brow flashes a one-sided smirk, "Stubborn." She catches the look on his face as that of wondering if he should be insulted, and she stops to explain. "She just reminded me that there have been times when I was so mad at you that I didn't let you explain, but you never just gave up the way I was going to. And I was ready to, Castle. Well…" She stops herself with a shake of her head, "not ready, but…resigning to my fate."

At least they felt the same way.

"She stole half a bottle of wine and told me to do what you would do in this situation and just don't listen." She says with a breathy chuckle as she picks up her sandwich.

"So, looking past the fact that I'm feeling insulted by that, how did Lanie hear about this? Did you tell her?" He asks her, not accusing her, but having a hunch, and he was at least hoping that one redhead in his family would stay out of trouble.

She shakes her head with a mouthful of food, "No, she said Alexis told her." He grins evilly and nods his head. "Oh, come on, Castle. You can't be mad at Alexis for asking Lanie if anything was going on. She said that you were held up in your office drowning yourself in scotch. She was worried about you."

"So you're allowed to be mad at your dad, but I'm not allowed to be mad at my daughter?"

"There's a difference here, Castle."

"Yeah, you can't ground your dad."

Beckett sits up after being hunched over her tray and goes on the defensive for Alexis. "She couldn't have known that Lanie would come to me. My dad, on the other hand, was fully aware of what he was doing. And you can't tell me that you're not glad Lanie convinced me to come back." She fires back with pursed lips and a crooked brow.

He sighs and nods. "It's just…" He starts, not really wanting to get into what else Jim said now, but he knows it will probably be worse if he just lets it stew. That Jim would end up getting more of an earful from an angry daughter for interfering than he should. He was wrong about a lot, but Jim was defending his daughter, and after everything life has put him through, Castle feels he doesn't deserve any more grief, if he can help it. He looks back up to her and sees her looking at him expectantly. "He said that he was the one that told you not to call me while you were recovering."

"Okay." She says with a firm voice, waving her hand in front of him. "That's probably my dad taking blame for something he shouldn't have, Castle."

"What do you mean?" He asks as she takes the last bite of her sandwich, while he finished his some time ago.

She waits until she's finished to explain. She is at least glad that the two of them talking around food isn't weird, after all the times they've gone over case work together over dinner. "When we got up to his cabin, I was already pretty hesitant to call you. My dad came into my room to check on me the morning after we got up there, and I told him I was thinking of calling you, and all he said was he thought that I should wait until I got back on my feet. That doesn't mean he decided for me, Castle."

It's then that the one thing that Jim said that bothered him the most floats into his mind and lodges itself into his conscious. And Beckett can obviously see it. His eyes just clouded over and his mind seems adrift in memory.

"Rick?" She prompts after too long of a silence.

"Why didn't you just call me, Kate?" Her breath gets heavy and she feels the unmistakable weight of guilt being thrown on her, and the undeniable claw to fess up scratch at the back of her throat. "If nothing else, to just tell me you were alright."

She lets out a heavy breath and pushes her tray out of the way, leaning forward on her arms after brushing her hair behind her ear. "I wanted to, I was going to." She admits painfully. "Almost every day I would… I would grab my phone and go to your name, see your picture and… seeing you would just… make it all hurt."

He feels his heart clench at the fact that she just told him that it was him causing her physical pain.

"When I would look at your picture, I could only think about you holding me…" She still won't look at him. She has her eyes focused down on the pattern on the wood grain on the table, lost in memories, her arms folded across her chest as she leans forward. "Begging me to stay with you. I've never heard you sound like that, it…" She lets her words fall with a shake of her head.

He wants to reach across the table and grab her hand the way she did for him earlier, but she has it shoved into her side. He silently waits her out, looking her in the eye and trying to softly stare hard enough to where she can feel him stare at her, the way she usually can.

"And when I would remember hearing what you said, it would just… hit me all at once." She says with a defeating shrug of her shoulders. She finally looks back up to him with a softly arched brow. "I wasn't lying when I told you I just needed to get away from it all. Every time I would think about calling you and… hearing your voice, it would just send me back to that day, and at the time… I just couldn't handle that."

He feels he should accept that. But he needs to get it off his chest that he should have been there for her, regardless.

"I told you I wasn't as strong as you are at facing things like that, Castle. I know it's no excuse for the way I've treated you, but… it was realizing that that made me want to be. That's why I went to see a therapist." She says, a soft, almost apologetic smile gracing across her face. "So I could be stronger for you."

"I should have been there, Kate." He says, words spilling out as soon as she leaves room for them.

And she immediately tries to deny him, shaking her head and averting her eyes. "No, Castle. You shouldn't have, I was-"

"I don't care." He cuts her off. "I should have been there. You're my partner, Kate. You may think that seeing you like that may have been too much, but I would rather see you hurting and be there to help you, than not be there and know you're suffering. Your father tried to tell me the same thing, that you were right to shut me out the way you did, but he was wrong."

"Was he?" She challenges, arching her brow.

" _Yes._ " He answers. "Kate, it may have had a limited meaning to you, but me being your partner didn't just mean being the guy who brings you coffee every morning. And you're right, seeing you like that would have killed me, but not as much as knowing I wasn't there when you needed me to be."

"But Rick…" She starts, but Castle shakes his head, knowing her response.

"Wanting me there and needing me there are not the same thing, Beckett."

"Castle, why are you fighting me on this so hard?" She asks, deciding to put up somewhat of a fight against this. She could barely let her father see her the way she was.

"Because I want you to know that you can count on me, and that's never going to happen if you don't give me a chance to try."

"Do you honestly believe that I don't think I can count on you, Rick?" She asks, and it's not a question, it's a challenge. She lets her frustration vent our through a hard sigh and unfolds her arms, putting her hands together out on the table, mirroring him, but deciding to put her hands on top of his. "I know you wanted to be there for me, Castle, and…" She flashes an all too brief smile his way before she looks back to him, "and in a weird way, it's incredibly sweet that you're pushing back on this so hard. But I wasn't where I am now back then."

"But that doesn't matter to me, Kate."

"I know that." She urges him, squeezing his folded hands. She's falling for him with every second he fights her on this, wanting to badly to care for her. "I'm not saying I didn't miss you, Castle, because I did. But with everything that I needed time to figure out, like you telling me how you felt, it just wouldn't have been right." She tries to explain, caressing his hands with her thumbs as she did earlier. "If I tell you that reading your book helped me out a lot, will that make you feel better?"

He looks up, looking downtrodden. "Did it, really?"

She smiles and nods, humming her affirmation. "And, at the time, it was the best thing you could have done for me." She raises her hand to stop his protest, "I know it's not the way you wanted it, but it was… okay?" She asks, waiting for him to accept it and agree. He just keeps his eyes focused down on their hands as he sighs. "You know…" She starts, seeing an opening, "you never did sign it for me." That catches his attention. He looks up with a surprised brow. "I waited in line for an hour and a half."

Finally, a smile spreads across his handsome face again, making his eyes light up. "Well, while I usually don't sign autographs while I'm on a date…" He says, unfolding his hands and entwining his fingers with hers again, making her heart flutter, "I suppose I can make an exception."

"Is that a problem with you, Castle? Because we've had dinner together over case work dozens of times and that's never happened before."

"Just for that, you're paying for every dinner we go out for now."

She giggles giddily, letting her head fall forward, taking time to appreciate how easily he can defuse a situation and make her laugh when she needs it most. "You ready to go?" She asks, lifting up on his hands and letting them fall back down to the table with a soft thud.

He agrees and they both stand, moving toward the door and out into the warm, early summer dusk of New York, with Castle holding open the door as he goes in front of her, letting her breeze past him. She stops outside the door and waits for him. "Pulling out my chair, holding the door for me? What's next, you going to put your coat over a puddle for me?"

"Well, not this one. It's one of my more pricey ones." He cracks back, making her bite back a smile.

"What, are you saying you're going to be holding open all doors for me now that we're dating?"

"Well, not revolving ones. Those are kind of hard to hold and open at the same time." She laughs again, incredibly glad that starting a relationship with her hasn't changed him.

She takes a step closer to him, looking at his soft smile. "So, you want to…" She shrugs her shoulders and reaches for one of his hands, "come by tomorrow morning? We can just spend the day together?"

He squeezes her hand and looks away, thinking, "Well, I'll have to cancel my date with boredom, but I think I can squeeze you in." He jokes, but she decides to give this lame joke of his a small huff. "Nine okay?"

"That's perfect."

She smiles beautifully over to him as she gives him a slight nod and turns to walk the short distance to her apartment. But he doesn't let her hand go and waits until she feels it tug behind her. She looks back to him with soft surprise. It's then that he gently pulls on her hand, pulling her toward him. She doesn't even put up a fight as she takes the two large steps it takes to land against him, his hand tugging on hers in such a way that he puts her arm around his shoulders when he does.

He slowly moves his arms around her, one hand going around to the small of her back, and the other on the arch of her spine, holding her against him, feeling the air between them turn hot as soon as their eyes meet. She squeezes his bicep with the hand that's not against his neck and feels her lips tingle. She wouldn't put up any fight if he were to kiss her the way he did last time, even now on a busy New York street.

But he surprises her and snakes his arms around her fully and leans down, simply hugging her. She feels herself smile at his sweet gesture, and doesn't waste any time in wrapping her arms around his shoulders, enjoying that she has to press up on her toes and that he has to pull her up to meet the height difference.

She feels her eyes drift shut as she breathes him in, taking in a long whiff of his scent, but more being overwhelmed by the feeling of warmth, caring, kindness, love, and even safety that she feels being in his arms like this. She feels so secure, so together, so at peace. She was right, she doesn't want this to stop.

But they start to move apart at the same time, both smiling at each other lovingly. "I owed you a hug… from… from this morning." He explains, his arms still around her.

Her hands find solace on his shoulders as she leans back down. "It's nice when one of us isn't dying."

"That is a bonus." He agrees with a bright smile as his hands go to her sides and they separate.

She smiles with a laugh and nods, nervously brushing her hair behind her ear. "So…" She starts, looking up to him with a gleam in her eyes, "until tomorrow?" She asks, knowingly.

His smile softens, "Until tomorrow." He agrees, and watches her step away and continue down the street toward her apartment. She turns back as she goes, lifting her hand to him in one last farewell. He lifts his hand up to her with a smile with one hand in his pocket, his fingers grasping something he's killing himself for not telling her about.

He lets out a heavy breath and pulls out the small black thumb drive containing her file. He could try and tell himself that he just never found the right time, but he knew when he told himself that he was going to tell her that there never would be a right time to tell her about this. And having her in his arms just now, how perfectly she seemed to fit there, like she was meant to be there, like she was sculpted perfectly to fit, how she was clearly anticipating and even wanting him to kiss her, it was a feeling he selfishly clung to. And it's going to be even harder when he does kiss her. As if last time wasn't hard enough to stop.

He puts the thumb drive back into his pocket, knowing it's just going to get harder to tell her.

* * *

 _A/N: Most reviews I'm getting are asking me to up the rating, others want it in a separate story post. I'll wait till I hear from more of you on upping the rating._

And as to the criticism I received about Jim's comments, most of you seemed to think that they weren't going to come up again. Have faith and keep reading, and as always, feel free to review. :)


	8. Chapter 8

"Katie…"

"Dad, why couldn't you just come to me directly? Why'd you go behind my back to Castle?" She asks into the phone, sad anger coiling into her voice.

"Would you have listened?"

She rolls her eyes and her shoulders deflate, "You're my dad, of course I would have listened."

"Katie." He challenges, knowing her all too well. "You're mother and I knew that we could never tell you how to live your life, even when you were a little girl." She seals her lips and feels her heartstrings being yanked at the mention of her mother. "You remember how you'd always yell at us for having a hand on the grocery cart when we'd let you push?"

A sad chuckle gets pushed through, remembering being little and very annoyed that her parents thought she couldn't handle pushing the cart at the grocery store all on her own. "Dad, I'm your daughter." She says, reminding him that he can always talk to her, but he continues before she has the chance to explain that.

"All we could do is try our best to give you the ability to see right from wrong." He goes on ahead of her.

"Then why couldn't you just tell _me_ you thought I was doing something wrong?"

"Honey…" He says heavily, "there's so much I wish I could have done differently. I don't think I have to tell you that." She closes her eyes and nods, remembering back to her time, coping with him as she nursed him back to sobriety. "But wasting the time I did not being with your mother when I could have is what I will always regret the most." Her heart goes into her throat, the sense that he's finally telling her what she needs to hear. "I'll never get that time back."

"Dad…" She says softly, running her fingers into her hair.

"I don't want you and Rick making the same mistake over some… petty arguments. Because when it comes down to it, that's what they are. You deal with people who lose loved ones every day, Katie, wishing that they had just one more minute with the person they lost, just to tell them they loved them. You should know that better than most."

"Then why didn't you just tell me that, Dad?" She asks on a hoarse voice, sitting down on the edge of her bed with a bounce.

She can hear him let out a long sigh on the other end of the line. "Ask Rick the next time you see him how hard it is to discipline your only little girl. You know I always left that up to your mother."

"Dad." She whines.

"Katie," He stops her, "if you learn from anything of my mistakes," she bites the side of her lower lip as she hangs her head, "don't waste any more time."

She nods to herself, "Okay, Dad."

"I love you, Katie."

"Love you too, Dad." She says and hangs up, letting her hand fall down in her lap, her heart feeling heavy. She shakes her head, wondering what words of encouragement her mother would be telling her as she told her about Castle. Her dad may distance himself from her personal life all together, but her mother would see the situation and just have a smirk on her face, making Kate angry when she would say that he was 'the one', just because she would know that she doesn't believe in that kind of thing.

She presses her palm gently up to her eye to soak up the unfallen tears and stands up, her eyes briefly catching the picture of her mother on her dresser. She breathes in a few hard breaths as she pads out of her bedroom and into her living room to check her email before Castle gets here, but she happily loses the chance once she hears a knock on her door.

She feels a warm smile spread across her face, snipping the strings that her dad tied to her heart with her phone call and moves around the coffee table to answer the door. She pulls it open and sees him standing casually in her door way, hands in his pockets, looking down at the floor. Wearing a pale blue dress shirt and dark denim jeans and a jacket, once again he slightly puts her to shame in a thin grey t-shirt and black yoga pants.

She breathes a laugh as she steps aside, "Geez Castle, what is with you always overdressing?" She jokes as he looks up.

He smirks as he starts into her apartment, brushing way too close to her. "Never look to me to make it easy for you, Beckett."

She pushes her tongue into the side of her cheek with pursed lips and slides her door shut. She almost expected that them dating would change the way he is around her, but she just happily admitted to herself that she was wrong. Castle starts to meander around her apartment, looking content as his eyes skirt around her apartment. "Here," She starts, coming up to him, "let me take your coat."

His eyes find hers quickly with a raised brow as she takes him away from being seemingly lost in thought. He smiles warmly as she comes up behind him and wraps her fingers around the back of his collar, her nails grazing the back of his neck as she lets him push the sleeves off, her breath being stolen as the thin fabric of the shirt shows off more definition in his muscles than she's used to.

She swallows past her dry throat as she returns his thankful smile and goes to hang his coat on one of the hooks in the foyer. When she turns back around, he's undoing the buttons on his cuffs and rolling his sleeves up. She doesn't know if he feels it, but there's a tense odor of awkwardness sinking in the air between them. But it could just be her ogling, and there have been times when his appearance has caught her off guard, but it's never been that quick to do that to her.

But it truth, Castle's mind couldn't be more out of the room. Her nails softly grazing against the back of his neck when she pulled his jacket off surprised him, but it just made him sting with a guilt he's never felt before. She's finally showing some sort of affection, and the more he gives into returning it, the more he feels it's undeserved the longer he goes on without telling her about the flashdrive he hesitantly put in the pocket of his jacket right before he left.

"You hungry, have you uh… you eaten yet?" She says with a shrug as she side steps toward her kitchen.

"No actually. I woke up late to find Alexis and my mother making something that I don't think you're supposed to eat." He says, following her, still rolling up his other sleeve.

"What's that?" She asks on a laugh.

"I can only hope that it had something to do with skin care, because if she's feeding whatever she was making to her granddaughter, I severely misjudged her cooking abilities."

Kate laughs, and the face splitting smile that flashes onto her gorgeous face makes him smile a half-cocked grin of his own. He draws in a deep breath through his nose as she grabs the handle to her fridge. Her bright, beautiful smile, the happiness glowing off of her, her long, tumbling curls, her hazel eyes sparkling with laughter, her… beyond perfect body… this is going to be impossible.

"So…" He starts nervously, "we're on the same page here, right?" He asks, coming to sit on one of the stoles in front of her island.

Kate turns around with a loaf of bread and a carton of eggs, shrugging her shoulders before she leans against the counter on the opposite side. "What do you mean?"

"Well… that we're…" He cartwheels his hand, not really knowing how to explain himself at this point, "giving this a shot? I mean, I know that we may have gotten side tracked last night, but… we never really came to a uh…" He stops, looking for the right word as his eyes skirt away from her questioning eyes, "an agreement."

She pushes the corners of her lips downward, nodding her head as she turns back around to get a bowl. "Well, Castle, I know that," She stops to bring the bowl back to the counter and stand on the opposite side of her island where she was before, "talking about where we stand isn't really our strong suit."

 _You've no idea…_ He thinks bitterly to himself.

"But... you were right yesterday, Castle." She says, her smile soft and eyes confident and hopeful. "I think we've wasted enough time."

He's surprised at her wording, "You do?"

She nods, "I do. Because uh…" She starts, going about her kitchen to grab a few more utensils, "I called my dad this morning. I asked him why he felt he had to go behind my back to my partner instead of just coming to me directly. I mean, I'm his daughter." She says, throwing about her hand as she comes back to her place across from him.

"Would you have listened?" He tells, not asking.

She bites back her smile into an unamused smirk, bracing herself on the counter as she shakes her head, looking toward the living room. They must talk to each other more often than she's aware of. "Do you two call each other all the time or something?"

He pushes his brow together, "Why would ask that?"

"Because he said the exact same thing."

"Well, would you?" He asks this time, challenging her. A brief thought shoots into her mind that this is why she wants to be with him, how he doesn't stop just because she puts up a fight.

"Yes, he's my dad, Castle."

"Beckett…" He starts, sliding down from the stole and standing adjacent to her, "if I had a choice between yelling at Alexis or yelling at Alexis' boyfriend, which do you think I'd choose?"

"Castle, you once asked me to put Ashely through the scared straight program." She cracks, planting her hand on her hip and narrowing her eyes toward her partner.

"My point is, Beckett…" He explains, reaching out and putting his hand on her arm, "telling your only daughter she's doing something wrong with her life is a lot harder than you think it is."

"But Castle, I'm his daughter." She argues, a soft arch in her brow and a tight slunk in her shoulders.

He notices it, and takes a small step forward, letting his hand hold her elbow before falling back down to her side. "Beckett, what's really bothering you here?" He asks sincerely.

She lets out a shaky breath and cranes her neck, her hair falling in front of her face a bit before she pushes her hand into it and looks back up to him. "I'm all he has left, Rick." Castle feels his heart strengthened at the fact that she's opening up to him about this, like she's giving him a chance to be there for her in a capacity she's never really allowed him to be before now. "If he can't come to me about this, about… his own daughter making a mistake like that, then what will he come to me about?"

"Kate, I'm not going to pretend to be an expert here." Castle says, being tender but honest, "Maybe it's pride, or maybe he just thought that you weren't in the wrong in the situation the way I was, but… he's lucky he has you."

"I am not the perfect daughter, Castle." She says on a harsh whisper with a shake of her head.

"No, that would be Alexis." He says, trying to break up the heavy air with humor.

But she swings it back at him, "Can't imagine how, I hear she was raised by a complete delinquent."

"No, I kicked Meredith out when she was four, _oh!"_ He exclaims, pointing a finger at her with a knowing smirk, "You mean my mother. I know what you mean." He finishes, comically rolling his eyes, causing her to laugh swallowed giggles, her expression lighting up as he so easily takes the feeling of burden off her with humor.

"How _did_ Alexis turn out the way she did?"

"I tend not to question it, I don't want to jinx it."

"No, I'm serious, Castle." She says with a smile, going about rearranging the utensils on the counter.

"Alexis is the unlikely result of someone who had an unexpected amount of fun being a very devoted father, and who was lucky enough that her devoted mother was only devoted to herself."

She sees him shake it off, but picking up on the subtle clues he's giving her, she can tell that it's a troubled past he's probably come to accept. "Well, Alexis is a great girl, Castle. Lanie has nothing but good things to say about her." She says, giving somewhat of a professional progress report on his daughter interning with Lanie.

He shrugs as he pushes off the counter and starts around the other side behind her, "That's because there's only good things to s-"

She grabs the hem of his shirt with her hand as he passes behind her, pulling him down to her. His lips land firmly against hers, making a tidal wave of electricity wrack through her, starting at his lips, and going down to her toes, making her nerves feel charged at the feeling of his soft… soft lips returning her kiss. She can't feel her heartbeat after the shattering thud it let off as his lips landed on her, and it still hasn't stopped.

He's just softly kissing her, not breaking the same kiss, just slowly letting himself fall forward toward her with every passing, blissful, heavenly, heart stopping second. Her hand, just a few seconds ago was scrunching the thin fabric of his shirt right where it buttons, is now flat against his chest. And she hopes that he can feel all this, because the moan that just bellowed out from the back of her throat is going to be hard to live down if he can't.

He finally lets her go, but she can still feel the heat of his lips teasing her, as well as the fiery electricity coursing through her veins, not letting her rest until she gets more. She can feel his hand hovering just above her side, wanting to touch her, the unmistakable pull of his touch giving him away. They've danced around this for long enough, she decides. She's done wasting time.

Once she pulls open her eyes and finds his staring back down at her, darkened with lust, the fight she's been putting up against him says it's time to lose.

* * *

 _A/N: Calling in votes, most of you who responded want the rating bumped up. So that's what's going to happen. Have to respond to market forces. So be sure to adjust your search parameters accordingly when searching for this story. Let me know what you think in a review, and don't forget to check out A Whole New Light if you want to see how I write 'M' rated scenes. :)  
_


	9. Chapter 9

_A/N: Rating didn't change in this chapter, but will in the next. It ran longer than I anticipated, and I couldn't justify making it any longer with where I plan to go with it. Rating will change the next chapter. But with this chapter,_ _reader discretion is advised._

* * *

The seconds feel long, almost like minutes, but in reality, it was just a brief pause to take a quick breath, figuring out what the hell they just did to each other.

Her grabbing him out of nowhere, unexpectedly even to her, kissing him with lips that felt better than any others he's had before threw all of his selfless ambitions of telling her about his own secrets are gone. He's been under her spell for longer than his pride will allow him to admit, and he's just been looking for an excuse to cut all the chains holding his self-control.

And her kiss didn't just give him that excuse, it gave him every single reason in the world to let himself take the leap.

Her eyes are half-lidded, her hand resting against his chest, her ring finger slipping through the hem of his shirt and tickling his bare skin, accidental or on purpose, he'll take it. Their minds seem to click right at the same time, their eyes dancing between each other, both wondering what they just did and what they will do about it. In two quick motions that takes less than mere seconds, she wrenches his shirt in her fist again, his arms goes around her mid-section, and their lips slam against each other in a huff of hot breath an unquenchable passion.

Neither of them take time to wind up, their springs have been retaining four years' worth of tension. The shockwave of exited blood racing through his veins would scare him in a normal situation, but with her, it was almost expected. Her lips are devouring his, robbing and chipping away at his self-control with every frenzied pass they make against his. For once, he feels like he's fumbling with her. His hand is on the small of her back, but can't seem to just sit still and pull her into him.

But she's making up for it by pulling herself up to him, a brief thought skirting its way into her quickly hazing-over mind that her lack of heels presents a challenge she's never anticipated but will gladly hurdled whenever presented to her again. Her hand lets go of his shirt that's making it impossible to feel herself being pulled up against him and reaches up to pull at his jaw, the tips of her fingers teasing his earlobe. Her mind is being consumed with getting more of him, as quickly as possible. A quick addict to a drug she's been, until now, hesitant of, being him.

His lips light her whole body with a fire that demands it be left alone with the source to just burn. His hands finally find their way around her, one pressing against the small of her back and the other going up to the back of her neck, making her acutely aware of his bicep bulging into her side as he holds her head against him.

She feels her legs give out to her weight when he captures her bottom lip, keeping it to himself with a light tug of his teeth. She just takes this momentary opportunity of weightlessness to vice her arms around his neck, holding herself to him as she presses her lips against him more than she ever has to anyone else before.

The tight knot in her stomach coils even more as that brief, rapid thought skirts past everything he's doing to her. That it's never been this way with anyone else. She stops returning his fervent barrage and forces herself to stop, only for a split second, with her lips still grazing his as his arms fold in around her. It's in this brief second that she admits to herself that this scares her. But when his fingers go from the back of her neck to the arch of her back and fan out, she finds her feet again and gives in.

It scares her, but it's worth every ounce of terror.

Once she finds her footing again, pressing up on her tip toes to repay him for her brief interlude, she unsnakes her arms from around his shoulders, leaning back down but not letting his lips go as she grabs the ends of his collar and starts pulling him out of the kitchen. His seems to plant his feet at first as she struggles to pull against his shirt with their lips still tightly sealed against each other.

But she still pulls at his shirt, even after she feels herself being let out of the protective cocoon his arms were, his hands now barely holding onto her hips. His mouth finally lets her go and she leans back with a huff, her fists still latched onto his collar. His lips are puffed and his eyes are hazy.

But hers… they're darker, lusting, demanding, not taking no for an answer, almost animalistic. It's not his body that's stopping him from just launching forward and taking her right now. Every physical thing about him is screaming at him for not listening and just giving into her, so much it's almost painful. "Beckett…" He breathes.

It his damn conscience. It won't leave him alone. He can't do this to her. He can't just keep quiet about it. There's no positive outcome here. "This way." She hisses on a pant. God, they're both panting already and all they've done is kiss. Telling her is going to be impossible.

He finally feels his conscience give him permission once his eyes find a sliver of her bare stomach. His patience should be rewarded, his dedication to this, to them, his belief that they could amount to something, and that something would be amazing, and that it would be worth it.

His eyes flick back up to hers, finding her glaring at him, her shoulders panting, and her lips having evidence of his being there. In that moment, his mind gives his body the permission it's been pleading for and leaps forward, trying to grab her up in his arms, but she escapes him. Still latched onto his shirt, she starts backward through her apartment, toward the open door that leads to her bedroom across the main room of her apartment.

He catches her right outside the door, pushing against her side and pinning her against the wall, one hand grabbing her leg, yanking it up his side by her knee. Her breath is caught in her throat as the mosh pit her heart is in just intensifies and he finds her lips again. Once the breath gets let go, it turns into a deep moan, resonating from her stomach, making his tongue feel amazing as it slides against hers, absorbing the vibrations of her voice.

She's never let anyone do this to her. She always… always needs to be in complete control. Needed to be. But she just willingly let him take complete control of her, maybe even encouraged it… and she's loving it. His kisses are pressing her head back into the wall, she not being supported by her own legs, her hands are mindlessly wandering his back and his hair. After hooking her foot around his leg, she pushes her fingers into his hair, grabbing a handful as his teeth nip and tug at her lips.

"Kate…" He pants against her lips, calling her attention but not stopping. Her heart quivers at the sound of her first name being said by him in that tone. It just makes every limb that's squeezing him squeeze him that much tighter.

But her reaction to his call that he needed to say something made him loose track of what it was he needed to say. Her legs squeeze his waist tighter, her fingers squeeze his hair tighter, and her hand presses his back into her harder.

"Door." She breathes between kisses. "Bedroom." She pants again, sounding addlebrained. "There." She says, throwing her arm out from around his neck, grabbing the door frame leading into her bedroom.

He stops his relentless venture after her and leans back just enough to miss him. She lets out a high pitched groan of frustration at the loss, not trusting her own legs to keep her upright, but stands up on them anyway, shaking as they take on her weight. God, he's making her legs shake. Her stomach coils even tighter at the anticipation.

She acts quickly, pressing against his broad chest and turning him around, pushing him through her bedroom door. He falls back against the side of her unmade bed, stumbling to crawl backward to the center, his eyes glued to her as she goes after him, crawling up her bed over him to finally settle, straddling him with an evil, happy grin.

"Kate, there's some-"

"Castle." She stops him, her fingers having just undone the top button of his shirt, and now have grabbed the fabric and tugged, frustrated. She leans down, her arm bracing her beside his head, while her other hand puts a finger of his lips, in a way that lets him know she's teasing. "You have been talking about this… for four years." She pants with a shake of her head. "Now that we're finally doing it… please… shut up-"

"And kiss you?" He finishes, the old cliché coming to mind.

But she shakes her head again, her breath still heavy. "No, just shut up."

She doesn't let him respond and kisses him anyway, pressing her lips to his hard, pushing him back down against the pillow. As her fingers continue to dance their way down the hem of his shirt, unbuttoning it with quickness and precision he would only expect out of her, he gives up hope in telling her before this is over. Even if she would let him, he couldn't bring himself to do it and end this.

She undoes the last button and pulls on his shirt, untucking it as much as she can on her own without his help as he forces off his shoes with his toes. Once she has his shirt open and untucked, her fingers fan out against his bare chest, her light panting letting out a small shutter as he leans up against her hands to pull off his shirt. Her hands follow him, her hands going over his shoulders with her thumbs hooking the sides of his shirt, pulling it off over his shoulders, surprising her by kissing her once he's upright.

She lets out a small squeak of a moan against him as she smiles against his lips, grabbing his shirt once he pulls the sleeves off and tosses it haphazardly against her bedroom wall. It's not a second after his hands are free that they go to the hem of her shirt. Without reservation, he pushes it off her, her excited, giddy laughter ringing in his ears, making his heart flutter. She takes a hold of her shirt once it's out of his reach and throws it against the opposite wall she tossed his shirt against.

A thought shoots into her mind, wondering how quickly he can discard her of her bra. She cocks her brow and smirks, mentally timing him, but when she looks into his eyes, they're frozen. It only takes a moment to follow his eye line to find what he's looking at, and once she realizes what it is, everything comes to a grinding, screeching, heavy hearted, halt.

His eyes are frozen on the small, puckered touch of skin in the center of her chest, smaller than a dime. His throat closes at the sight of it. He's never seen it before now. His right hand lays against her side, but once his thumb grazes the scar there, his hand jumps off her, suddenly afraid he's hurting her by touching her there. But his hand is only off her skin for a moment before she grabs his hand and softly presses it back down to her skin, pressing his palm back down against the straight, wrinkled line of skin going down her side. She won't have him afraid to touch her. She didn't even think of this when he was whipping off her shirt.

His eyes are drawn back to the scar in the center of her chest. His hand on her side is still hesitant, but she's holding it to her side, waiting until the caution his hand is radiating with fades. She can feel it wanting to pull away, but she keeps it pressed there until he stops. His eyes stare at her gunshot scar for a long moment, and she can see him replaying that day in his head.

"It burned…" She starts, her voice soft and hesitant. She's only gone into this level of detail with Burke. "At first, when… I felt the bullet, it-" She clenches her teeth, briefly focusing on Castle's warm hand against her side, "it felt like I was being run over. I didn't even feel you tackle me. My whole body was screaming at me. It felt like I was being pulled into myself. I was…" She pauses to try and gather the tears forming, but decides to revert the energy to telling him what she needs to say. "I was so scared."

His eyes never left her scar, his brow furrowing. His other hand finally lifts up and his fingers reach out to touch her, but he stops, just tickling the skin. "I should have been faster." He says heavily, still not looking away from her scar.

"Rick…" She says with a shake of her head, knowing where he's going and won't let him get there.

"This didn't have to happen. I would have taken it."

She quickly puts her hands on his jaw, forcing him to look up to her with desperate eyes. "Don't… Castle." She softly scolds him. "I won't let you."

"You're assuming I would have a choice, Kate."

"You _do._ " She tells him, her arms going around his neck as she still sits straddling him, and he sits up right, his hands softly caressing her scar tissue. "I won't let you do that for me, Castle." She can't admit to him why, not yet.

"That's where you're wrong, Kate." He says, his eyes softening up to her. "I never have a choice when it comes to protecting the people I love. I'm a slave to it. I'll abandon every principle I have, every sense of right and wrong I had to if it meant keeping you safe."

"Don't do this, Rick. You'll lose yourself." And she loves who he is, she finishes the thought in her head.

"If I don't, I might lose you, and I'm not letting that happen again."

"I'm right here, Castle." She says, trying to bring him back by petting his hair with her hand. "That bullet wasn't meant for you. You have Alexis to think about."

"I also have _you_ to think about, Kate." He says, pushing back harder and harder on this. "I already had you die in my arms once, I'm not letting that happen again." He pushes, his voice hard and his eyes steely.

"Rick." She tries, caressing his earlobe with her thumb.

"I'm not going to just sit on my hands because I was too cowardly to act, knowing I could have done something to stop it. I'm not strong enough to survive losing you." He says through clenched teeth and glimmering eyes.

She pauses and looks at him with a soft gaze, trying to be as gentle and loving with him as she can, trying her hardest to bring him back to her. "Yes you are, Rick."

He looks down for a minute, chocking on words before he unclenches his teeth. She can feel his shoulders relax under her touch, but not by much. "I don't ever want that strength tested, Kate." He tells her, giving himself away with a momentary shake in his voice.

She lets out a long breath, running her hands over his bare shoulders and rests her forehead against his. There's a silence over them as he engulfs her again with his arms. She feels the emotional distance close when she feels herself in the protective cove of his arms again. She lifts her head off his and softly presses her lips against his forehead. She looks back down to his eyes, seeing a desperate longing shining in them. "Tell me again."

His eyes flutter for a second before he seems to dawn what she's asking for.

"I don't want those words tainted with the memory of that day anymore." She says, putting a hand on the side of his head, petting his hair with her thumb. "Tell me again."

He lets out a short, shaky breath before looking up to her again. "Promise me something." He says.

She flashes him a quick open smile, letting him know she's open to him. "Anything."

He turns up to look at her, his muscles still tense, his jaw still squared off, and his eyes still hard. "I can't have you dying in my arms again, Kate. I won't go through losing you. I already lost you once and you weren't even mine to lose. I'm not losing you ever again." He struggles, voice trembling. He looks like he's holding so much in, like he's about to break.

He's always been strong for her. Now he needs her to be strong for him. She softly takes hold of his jaw, "You didn't lose me, Rick." She says, pressing down on the tense hand that's been teasing her scar since this began. "I'm right here, right with you. I'm not going anywhere, and I don't plan to, okay? Hey…" She says after his eyes fall off hers, she brings them back with her hand, still outlining his jaw. "You're amazing, Rick… but tell me again. I'm listening this time… really listening." She puts her other hand on his jaw. "I promise."

He pulls her in, his arm going across her back and latching onto her shoulder as he slowly rolls her over. She lets out a long breath, feeling… secure under his solid weight as she reaches up and grazes her fingers across his cheek.

That hard, shaky, cold, steely look in his eyes is replaced with the look she's familiar with; a look of hope, passion, love, caring, gentleness. "I love you, Kate."


	10. Chapter 10

_A/N: Please be advised:_ _The rating has been raised to M due to explicit sexual content. Viewer discretion is advised._

* * *

She feels nothing but warmth, protection, and tender security as he leans down and presses his lips to hers slowly. She takes note of the quiver in her throat as she returns his kiss of this feeling as she snakes her arms around his neck and isn't surprised that she's not pulling herself up to him, but pulling him down to her. She wants more of this feeling, the solid mass of his chest gently crushing her with just the right amount of weight.

As his tongue rolls over hers while his hand that's not tangled in her hair is squeezing the surgical scar on her side, she doesn't fight him, has no desire to put up any fight, and isn't even sure she'd win the fight if she did. She's always put up that fight. She always made it a point never to find herself in this position, sometimes with words, most often with forceful action. But with him, if anything, she's pulling more of it out of him.

One arm is around his side and pushing down against his back, while her other hand is in his hair, making sure his lips don't separate too far apart from hers when he breathes. Her legs, one of them trapped by having his hooked around it, are wanting to wrap around him and keep him here, right here. She's loving being in this situation so much, she doesn't bother exploring the nag in the back of her mind, asking her why.

It's a habit that she's quickly falling into, but is mindful she'll have to break, being feeling something for him that she's never felt before and going after it, not knowing what it is even if it's a good thing. But right now, she leaves that for later because he just rolled his hips just an inch, making her body rock.

His lips pushes hers off to the side as he cuts a path down her jaw line, his hot breath making her skin tingle with excitement. His mouth stops when he finds a spot on her neck that makes her recoil away because of the sudden jolt of euphoria, and once he finds it, she knows he's going to stay there by the sound of him letting out a too-pleased-with-himself chuckle.

Her heavy breathing becomes audible with the second pass his lips make at the spot on her neck where she is sure he can take her heartrate. Her leg, once viced by his, frees itself and quickly hooks around his as she claws at his back. His hand on her side is pressing against her, massaging her surgical scar more and more his the motions of his lips gets harder and quicker.

Her stomach is coiling tighter and tighter with every second that passes, and with every tease his teeth make against her racing pulse as his thumb pushes up under her bra. His thumb tugs at her bra, making her very acutely aware of just how constraining she's feeling still having it on. She mewls her body up to him, using as much freedom as he's giving her. Her hand finds its way back to his hair, grabbing him and pushing his lips lower into her neck, finding the base of her shoulder as his hand slips between her and the mattress.

She feels herself let out a long breath once she feels her bra slacken. Still revering the skin on her shoulder, not wasting time and just slipping his hand underneath to forcefully massage her breast, her dry heaving suddenly makes her miss his lips on her. They feel cold without him on them. She puts a hand against his jaw and tugs him back to her, feeling him press her down into her pillow with his lips, sending a quick jolt of electricity through her nerves.

Both of them realizing that her bra is still being a nuisance, she unweaves her arms out from around him, a blanket of his body heat enveloping her once she has her arms under him, wanting to keep them there, even after he quickly tugs the straps to her bra down her arms and onto the floor. She puts her hands against his chest as his lips continue to win in the onslaught they're making against hers. Feeling his muscles strain as he supports himself above her, she feels as if she just can't wait, but wants to, convinced it will make it that much better. Her body is giving into her desire for him before her mind realizes it made the decision.

Reaching down, with slightly erratic fingers, she undoes his belt and the button to his jeans. She's mewling frantic underneath him, the sensual motions of their lips moving with more passion, fervent, and wanting. She pushes down awkwardly once she feels his jeans slacken, feeling her hips jump once he leans down to kick the rest of them off, making every muscle in her body flex tightly.

His hand goes from her breast down her stomach and grabs the hem of her yoga pants, his knuckles brushing down the curve of her ass as he peels them off. She quickly moves her hands from clawing their way up his back again to the last of her clothing to help him speed the process, all the while their lips not parting. Once at the point where neither of them can reach without separating, they both simply kick at each other's legs in frustration until they feel the last of their clothing to the floor.

And once that happens, she throws her legs around him, pressing him down into her with fervent impatience. Once he slams into her, a force he wasn't prepared to take with her, and with a result she wasn't ready to handle, she feels her center coil even tighter, making her legs squeeze his waist tighter, her nails dig into his hardened shoulders, and her teeth fight back the need to bite down on his lip. With the sound of a small whimper ring in his ears, he reaches down and puts a hand on her inside thigh, pulling it up his waist as he buries himself even deeper inside her already soaked and quivering folds.

Her breath catches at his slow action, swallowing his. And again when he repeats the motion, this time with just a bit more force, kissing her in sync with the motion. With a few more tugs, a rhythm is set, slow, as gentle as their impatience and need for each other will allow them, and more intimate than she's ever been with anyone else. She's never felt this incessant need to kiss someone, to touch or be touched by someone.

It would be alarming it if wasn't so all-consuming. It would make her back away if she's ever felt it before, but she hasn't. She's never had the chance to ever prepare herself for this feeling because no one has ever made her. But with him, it's like he's catching her off guard, outflanking her usual defenses, if not, bypassing them all together, slipping right under her radar and reeking his havoc.

He pushes her legs open just a little more with each slow thrust into her, and at this angle, is something that's quickly eroding the last bits of control she has over herself. The way he's moving, the way he's pulling and nipping at her with his lips on hers, the way his bicep is bulging right underneath her arm as he supports himself over her, all of it seems to convolute against her at once. It all unweaves in a slow wave over her, quaking through her muscles as she shakes against him.

He has to stop, the feeling of her quivering around him making his already slippery control over things stumble. She forces him to stop at just the right time, her nails digging into his shoulders just hard enough to be just at the threshold to be considered painful. He lets her mouth go right as the second shockwave seems to quake over her, pulling loose a hard moan from her, as she racks her head back into her pillow and pressing her front hard up against his chest.

With that, the slippery control he had slips.

He captures her moan with his mouth, feeling her voice against his lips as she gladly accepts him and continues to push inside her, his hand reaching up to cup her breast again. She lets out a groan as she rolls her body to the side, flipping them over. If it wasn't for her body still reverberating with the feeling of the intensity of her orgasm, she'd miss the warmth and pressure she was getting from being under him.

She plasters her hands on his pecs, having to push herself off his addictive lips, flipping her hair behind her as she leans up above him. He has to tighten his stomach at the sight to keep from ending it. The dark look in her eyes is telling him she's not done. She looks down to him, pressing down against him as she slowly rolls her hips over him, still panting. Dear god, she's beautiful.

He starts to sit up, wanting desperately to kiss her, but she puts a hand on his chest, stopping him with an evil grin as she slowly rocks her hips against him, tightening her folds around him as she does. Her teeth gleam through her evil smirk as she sees his eyes struggle to keep themselves open. She repeats the motion, rotating her hips against him while tightening herself against him as she lifts him then presses down, relaxing her muscles, which gives her the response she wanted.

His eyes flutter closed and he falls back against the bed, the veins in his neck flexing as he fights to hold it all in. She giggles menacingly as she leans down and presses her lips to his jaw, her giggle turning into breathy laughter as his head rolls over on the pillow. She reaches up and runs her fingers into his hair, pulling his eyes back to hers. He looks back up to her to find her smiling softly, lovingly, conveying as much kindness and meaning as he can soak in.

He loves her too damn much. He reaches up and cups her jawline, his thumb caressing her cheekbone as she nods her head into his soft touch, keeping it there with her hand over his. Her eyes drift shut as she leans down and presses her lips to his again, the familiar wave of warmth rolling over her as he kisses her with his hand pulling her against him. She runs her hand that was keeping him from taking his away down his arm and taking a hold of his shoulder as she continues to move around him.

His hand goes up her thigh that's framing him, around the curve of her ass and up the dip of her spine. And she's quickly getting more and more restless, both of them wanting more and more of each other, quicker than they can give it. When he pushes up into her, it's her small whimper that makes him roll her over again, a welcomed gesture judging by the way her legs hooked back around his. He stops kissing her as he quickens the pace, driving in and out of her, each thrust met with her mouthing him silent encouragement.

He leans back just enough to look into her eyes, seeing her brow arched and eyes wanting. After a few thrusts, her head starts to shake, her mouth saying ' _don't stop',_ but her voice not able to say them. Her lungs won't let go of her breath as it builds inside of her again. He continues and he rests his forehead down against hers, her hand framing his jaw with her arm going across his shoulders.

Her folds are soaked as he continues to thrust into her, her motions not letting him stop even as his muscles burn. He leans back again, straining to look her in the eye. Once he does, she knows and just shakes her head once before pulling him back down and kissing him hard. With a few staggered pushes, he releases inside her already soaked folds, everything tightening around him as they ride out the intense shock of their joint orgasm together.

They both shudder as their bodies flex against each other, the aftermaths still taking its toll on them. Her lungs finally let her breath go in a long, sated, moan as her limbs go limp underneath him, her arm going dead across his shoulders and her hand that was on his jaw falling to the bed. She feels a smile tug the edges of her mouth apart as she puckers the slight distance needed to kiss him lightly.

He slips out of her, sending one last bolt through her, and rolls off of her with a thud, his body slamming down enough to make the mattress jump, causing her to laugh as she lays sated next to him, both panting heavily. She lifts her heavy arm and puts a hand on her forehead, trying to stop the spinning room, silently laughing. "Castle…" She pants, "that was amazing."

He breathes out a chuckle and smiles, trying to catch his breath, unable to speak.

She rolls her head over to look at him, seeing him smiling up at the ceiling with his eyes closed. She pushes over on her side, to the protest of her sated, sex-addled muscles, leans against her arm and puts a hand on his bicep. "So?" She asks, breath still a bit heavy. "Worth the wait?"

"That depends." He says, opening his eyes and looking over to her with a hazy smile. "What planet are we on?"

She feels herself tighten with laughter as she falls down to him, her body naturally forming into the side of him, smiling against his chest. She scoots herself closer to him, draping her leg over his and pulling on his side with her arm across his stomach. It's just a few seconds after that that she can feel his arm go across her back, curling her into him while his fingers pet her skin.

"Rick." She starts, lifting up after a minute of enjoying the comfort of his warmth, seeing him still smiling happily to himself with a hand behind his head. He looks up to her, still petting her shoulder softly with his fingers. She moves to lay next to him with her arm bracing her head, looking down to him with a soft smile, her fingers walking along the curve of his bicep. "Are we really doing this?"

He raises a surprised brow, "You ask me that _after_ we have sex as mind-blowing as that?"

She laughs softly and traces the outline of his tricep, "Yeah, it was pretty incredible."

"Yes, you were." He growls as he lets his eyes drift shut again.

"No, I mean…" She trails off, looking down at the invisible pattern she's drawing on his muscle, feeling his soft eyes open to gaze wonderingly at her, "that we're dating?" She asks, trying and failing to hide the nervousness behind her question.

He sits up on his arms and looks to her with a soft smile, "Why, Detective Beckett, are you asking me out?" He jokes, making her face split in a smile again. "And here I was trying to keep things professional."

"Castle, we're lying in bed naked." She says on a laugh.

"I still have socks on." He says, wiggling his toes from underneath the thin sheet covering their lower halves. "Kate," He starts, changing the tone between them as he rolls onto his side to face her, "I've wanted more out of us for longer than I'm even aware of."

She smirks, her eyes flicking downward. "What, and that wasn't enough?" She says, jokingly.

He pauses, "No." He answers seriously, catching her attention at his lack of hesitancy.

Her eyes find his again, shining with the same soft certainty she saw last night when he told her he was done waiting. She doesn't will it to happen, but a smile is fighting its way onto her face. "Well, I guess we can…" She starts, walking her fingers up his arm and across his shoulder, "do all those things that, uh…" She continues, her nail going up his chin, "couples normally do then, huh?"

"Mmm, I know what you mean." He moans as he leans forward and kisses her, "Tandem bike."

* * *

 _A/N: Viewership dropped slightly with last chapter. Don't know if it's the timing, or if I just suck. Let me know in the reviews either way. I'm not entirely sure about the content of this chapter. I would say I tried to be as tasteful as possible, but it's not up to me to assign value to something of my own creation. That's up to you. Let me know in a review if you hated it, (but if you do, try not to be anonymous.) :)_


	11. Chapter 11

It's a long while later before they finally work the last bit of lust out of their systems. Each time they'd think they were finally done, one of them would throw out a clever quip and start things rolling again, each time letting them catalogue maneuvers to make the other come unbound. But now, still lying in bed, sated, cuddled together with nothing but the thin, white bedsheet separating parts of their skin that aren't in contact, they silently lay together, with her huddled into the cove of his side with his arm around her.

She's never just laid with someone like this, for hours. The only times she hasn't wanted to get out of bed is when she wouldn't get enough sleep. But with Castle, having his arm hug her into him while she lays her hand down on his bare chest, legs tangled together, her mind being lulled by the feeling of his fingers softly petting her shoulder, she wants the outside world to just forget about them so they can just stay here.

But Castle's mind couldn't be in a more different place. He knows she's not asleep by the way she's fiddling with his chest hair with her fingers. The air is thick with a one sided silence. He can probably guess that she's blissfully comfortable right where she is, hugging herself to him after a long mid-day of love-making, if she uses that term. He is.

But the words, the guilt, the lies, the shame are all swirling in his mind, betraying the significance that lying in bed with her completely nude should hold to him. He feels sick with himself, there's a few passing thoughts that try to justify his actions, or lack thereof, but all in all, he feels completely undeserving of the angel cuddled into the side of his body.

His conscience can't just let him have this. His desire for her won out, and he is trying to defend himself by saying that he tried to tell her, even as she literally threw herself at him, but she wouldn't let him. He could have been more forceful, but when a beautiful woman he's been in love with for longer than he probably realizes is working on the buttons to his shirt, he only has so much will power to arm himself with.

But he's only just starting to pay for it. "Beckett." He cuts through the silence.

To her, the air is soft, cozy even. She loves being here with him. She honestly can't recall a time she felt this more at peace, where there's no problem in the world. She knows that there is, but none of them are here, in this room, bothering her when she's with Castle. And when he softly calls her, her eyes drift shut at the feeling of his chest vibrate as his voice resonates in her ears.

"Hmm?" She answers back, turning her head up to look up at him, her chin resting on his chest as he stares at the ceiling.

"Why didn't you give me a chance sooner?" It's not what he wanted to say, not by a long shot. If anything, it runs counter to what he needed to say.

She spreads her palm out against his abdomen and resettles herself against him. "I didn't think I was ready." She simplifies the complex issue, knowing he won't accept it.

"Ready how?"

"I wasn't lying about everything, Castle. When I told you about that wall I put up, I was being honest. I just didn't think I was ready to be with you with that wall still there. I knew that if I were to give us a shot while that wall was still there, it wouldn't be right." She explains softly, suppressing the sudden thought that she's confessing things she only ever said to Burke. She moves up, out of the warm cove of his body and shell of his arm around her and lays her head next to his on the pillow beside him.

He wanted to steer the conversation in a different direction, but these are things he feels he deserves to hear, after everything he's put himself through to get here with her.

She reaches over and puts her hand on his cheek, brushing her thumb across his cheekbone before reaching down to grab his hand. "You deserve someone who could give their best self to you, Castle, and I knew that if I just jumped into it with you, I wouldn't be that for you. But I wanted to be. So I asked you to wait until I was. I knew I couldn't move forward until this case was closed. I couldn't jump into it with both feet with that case still open."

Castle blinks and squeezes her hand, entwining his fingers with hers. "What changed?"

She flashes him a brief, warm smile, "I realized I could have both." It's not the answer he wanted, and it shakes him, but he makes it a point not to make it visual. "I only got this far in my case because of you, Castle. I only even have a shot at getting justice for my mother because of you digging it up in the first place and helping me."

He also got her shot, and is probably singularly responsible for the uprooting of her entire life. But she clearly can't see that.

"I'm going to get the people that killed my mother and Montgomery, and the people who shot me, and I'm going to do it with my partner beside me, but I'm not going to let it stop me from being in a relationship I want any longer. He can do it with me."

"What if they kill you, Kate?" He asks, pushing back against the unbreakable layer of certainty she seems to be putting on. "Your partner can't handle losing you to this again."

"That's why you're my partner, Castle." She says with a warm smile, putting her other hand on his, securing it in a firm grip. "As weird as it sounds, it's you that keeps me grounded. I've lost myself in this case before, but with you… you keep me tethered. You keep me in control, and…" She draws in a long breath, looking down at her hands encasing his, "I want you beside me when I do find the person behind all this."

He breathes a heavy breath. "Kate," He starts, his voice low and gruff as he sits up on an elbow, looking down at her soft smile, "I love you." He says, watching as her smile grows. "I want to end this case because I can't move forward without you, but you have to understand something. You're the only part of this case that I want."

She reaches up and softly touches his cheek again, "I know."

"I want this case to end so we can focus that energy on the future, but I can't do that if they kill you. And I told you already, I'll do whatever it takes if it means keeping you safe."

"Castle, what are you saying?" She asks naively.

He averts his eyes and feels his jaw click. "What if we can't do it?" He asks, his blood running nervously through his veins. "What if we never find out who's behind all this, Kate?"

"We will." She answers confidently. "I know we will."

He can tell when her mind is made up, when there's no convincing her. If he tells her now, she'll put her head down, close her eyes, and run straight at these people. Despite what she says, there's only so much he can do without just lying to her… as he has been. He cranes his neck and closes his eyes, feeling her hand cup his jaw just a moment after. He opens his eyes and finds her looking up at him with shining eyes and an arched brow. "I just don't want to lose you to this, Kate." He says as steadily as he can.

"That's why I need you with me, Rick. So we can do it together. You won't lose me if I'm right here…" She starts, gently pushing on his jaw to guide him back to her, "right?"

She has no idea what he means. He just feigns a smile and leans down, pressing his lips to her, hoping that the feeling of kissing her will rid his veins of the cold guilt. It seems to work as she snakes her arm around his neck and tugs him down to her, and he gives in, rolling back over her and pulling at her leg to wrap it around him.

He knows it's not right. She basically admitted to him that he will never be enough for her. He wanted desperately to be that for her, to be the one that would make her life whole. He wishes it could just be him alone, and that it wouldn't feel as if she's just using him as a means to an end. He would think of himself as a goal for her, their relationship being something for her to strive for when she does close this case.

But what good is it if meeting that goal gets her killed? What then? He feels himself shutter with heartbreak at the thought of her resigning to her fate and just 'settling' for him, accepting that she can never find whoever's behind everything, but she tries to heal it with her hand pressing against his hair, deepening the sweet motions of her soft lips.

Honesty will get her killed, and continuing to lie to her will kill him. He just wants to be enough for her.

He feels weak as he feels his eyes burn, knowing he never will be.

* * *

Closing the door behind him, he lets out a very heavy breath, his shoulders feeling heavy as he pulls off his jacket, his hand grabbing onto the flashdrive in his pocket that he never showed her. After hanging his jacket up in the closet, he goes into his office, throwing himself down in his chair, tossing the flashdrive in the center of his desk and putting his face in his hands.

It's a long couple of minutes before his mother finds him in the dark. "Richard?" She calls, flicking on the switch to the lights. "I take this to mean it didn't go well." She concludes and meanders toward his desk.

He sighs, guilt-ridden and throws himself back in his chair. "I didn't tell her." Martha gives him a slow nod, silently asking him for the details. "We spent… all day, just lying in each other's arms, making love, until I finally worked up enough courage to bring up her case." He says, his voice starting to raise with frustration.

"But… you didn't tell her?"

"She said in a matter of words, that she won't stop until she finds the person behind all this. And knowing her, she won't have any regard for her own life while she does."

"Are you _going_ to tell her?"

"If she won't have any regard for her own life, I have to, Mother." He says heavily, reaching for the remote sitting on the edge of his desk, turning on the smartboard against the wall. "If I tell her that there's someone out there that knows everything, and that I've talked to him, she'll put her head down and run head first at him. And I'm left behind, having to watch the woman I love get eaten alive."

"Well, dear, maybe she'll understand. Maybe, once you tell her _why_ you did what you did, she'll see that you were just protecting her."

"That's not the way she'll see it, Mother."

"Oh, how are you so sure?" She asks sassily.

"Because that's not how I'd write it."

"Richard, this is _not_ one of your novels, and Kate Beckett is not Nikki Heat. She has her fair share of problems, as we all do, but she is smart, and she loves you."

"She told me what's most important to her, Mother, and it's not me. I wish I was, I wish more than anything I was, but I'm not. And if I tell her now… I won't have any choice but to give her up."

"And why is that?" Martha challenges, frustrated with her son's flip-flopping on the issue.

"Because she'll get herself killed. Smith can only keep her safe as long as she stays away from the case, and if I tell her about him, she'll put blinders on and go straight for him, and after that, they won't stop until she's dead."

"Richard…" His mother soothes, coming around to the other side of the desk and leaning against the edge, "don't you think that Beckett deserves a bit more faith?"

"She's failed this test every time it's been given to her, Mother. She only stopped because I made her a promise that we'd pick it up again. She's not like me. I'd choose her over finding the people who shot her in a heartbeat, but… every time she's been given that choice, she's never chosen me. I wish…" He stops, scolding himself for feeling his eyes burn, "I wish that I had the faith that she'd open her eyes, but…" He shakes his head looking up to the smartboard, seeing her picture in the center, smiling over to him, "She's made her decision time and time again, and it's never been me."

"So… why not tell her, Richard. Why put yourself through this?"

He forces his eyes closed and breathes a shaky breath, opening his eyes back up to the concerned look of his mother. "Because I love her."

* * *

 _A/N: Pleasantly surprised with the response from the last chapter. I'll try to work in another love scene like that before the end of the story. Let me know what you think of this chapter, also. :)_


	12. Chapter 12

_A/N: May have noticed the title change. I never was satisfied with the title, and the new one has an appearance near the beginning. Let me know if you find it. :)_

* * *

Castle meanders slowly around the kitchen early the next morning, looking for something in a fully stocked kitchen that catches the attention of his appetite. But being about ten minutes in, he's still not having much luck. He doesn't have the energy to make anything, and the stuff that doesn't require cooking isn't very appealing. He decides to just shut the door to the fridge with a sigh, settling for coffee.

"Morning, Darling." His mother calls from the top of the stairs, drifting her way to the counter.

"Morning." He huffs, bracing himself on the counter and craning his neck.

"So… have you made any progress?"

He looks up inquisitively. She left him in a bad way last night, and he didn't get hardly any sleep. But he's made his decision. And after going back on it out of selfishness, he's made it final. "I'm telling her."

Martha's brow goes up, surprised. "You are?"

Castle nods sadly. "I've waited to be with her for years. Now, I'm finally with her and I can't even bring myself to enjoy it. I know she could tell how far away I was yesterday."

"How do you think she'll take it?"

"I don't know." He says lowly. "She has a knack for surprising me, but… either way, I can't hope for a future with her if I'm not honest with her."

"Well, that's understandable, Richard. But just realize also that this could put her in danger." Martha reminds him, pushing herself up on a stool.

"Don't you think I haven't thought of that?" He asks, sorrow starting to creep into his blood. "The best I can hope for is her at least… trying to understand why I did this."

"You think she will?" Martha doesn't ask, but challenges. Probably a small test of what he's going to have to go through with Beckett.

He closes his eyes and feels his heart harden. "No, I don't." He says just above a whisper. "I don't think that she'll choose me. But I have to give her a chance to choose, nonetheless. If she does choose me, then I'll know that this is real to her. And if she doesn't, then…"

Martha lowers her head and looks her son in the eye, "…then?"

Castle breathes a long sigh, "Then I'll know that I've been doing nothing but fooling myself for four years."

"Richard…" She says soothingly, "if you're so certain how she'll react, why are you telling her now?"

"I'm not certain, Mother." He says, lifting his head with half lidded eyes. "If there's one thing I've learned about Kate Beckett, it's that she will _always_ surprise me. But I at least have to _hope_ that she'll see past her case and for once see me."

"And you believe that you can do that?" She asks him, seemingly honest.

Castle shrugs his shoulders with a shake of his head. "Why the hell am I even with her at all if I don't believe in her? Beckett's done a lot of things wrong, but she deserves someone who will believe in her the way I do. And I just have to get her to see that that someone can be me."

"And if she doesn't see it the way you're hoping?" Martha cautiously asks.

"Then I'll know we weren't headed in the same direction to begin with. But I'm not wasting anymore time not doing this the right way." Martha nods and folds her hands together, accepting her cons decision. "She'll be here in about an hour, and I'd appreciate it if you could take Alexis and be somewhere else."

Martha nods, putting her hands up. "Alright, Richard. Whether it end good or bad, you will have the house to yourselves. I will get Alexis and leave you to it."

Castle nods, battling himself with honest gratitude for his mother, and desperate anxiousness of Beckett's arrival, due here in just over an hour if she keeps her time. Martha and Alexis leave just twenty minutes later, Alexis naïve to the situation and kissing him on the cheek just before going out the door. If nothing else, he still has his daughter. Once the door closes, he feels his smile fade quickly, brought down by the impending situation.

Taking a breath that feels empty going into his lungs, he goes into his office and plugs the flashdrive into the smartboard, watching his digital murder board come up on screen. He draws in a deep breath, looking at that beautiful smile in the center of the screen, letting it out almost certain it's going to be the last time he sees that smile grace her features after today. All he has is hope now.

He grabs the remote and shuts it off, letting the remote fall back down to his desk with a clatter. He's not set on losing her, but he's set on telling her. He goes back into the kitchen, killing time until she arrives by organizing a few things that don't need organizing. He just finished a second cup of coffee when he hears a knock on his door. He closes his eyes and takes a breath.

Once he pulls the door open, everything weighing him down falls away. She smiles brightly, her eyes light up, and she just radiates happiness when her eyes fall on him. "Hey." She calls quietly, taking a step forward.

He feels a smile tug at the corners, knowing by the time he notices it, it's splitting his face in half as she extends her arms to him when she steps through his door. Her arms go around his mid-section as he pulls her in, his fingers lacing together against the dip of her spine, trapping her in his arms. She wastes no time in leaning up the short distance she needs to firmly press her lips to his.

That familiar, but not unwelcomed jolt of electricity shoots up his spine as her hands splay out against his back, pulling a deep moan from the back of his throat when she pushes her lips harder against him. He can feel her giggle against his lips when she hears him. They finally separate after a kiss too long and passionate to be considered a good morning kiss. She leans back with her eyes still closed and her smile soft. "Mmm…" She hums, opening her eyes with her hands starting to roam his back, "you have any more of that coffee?"

His brow quirks, "Why don't you just have some more of mine?" He jokes.

Her teeth flash as she smiles, "It _is_ my favorite flavor." She moans, her eyes darkly darting down to his lips, kissing him just a second after the words sexily leave her lips, allowing him to capture them.

He presses her harder against him, feeling her do the same as he moans against her lips again, separating them after they kiss shortly. "I love getting you coffee."

"If this is how we're going to say good morning now, it's going to cause problems." She says, half seriously, more on the side of just being humorous.

"You always said that was my specialty."

Her lips purse, being pushed off to one side as she frantically fights her smile. "Do you always have to have the last word?"

Castle looks away, not moving to release her from his arms. "You're going to be annoyed if I answer that, aren't you?"

She finally flashes him an all too brief smile, her eyes sparkling up at him before she shakes her head and looks down between them. He notices, and is feeling the weight of what he has to do slam back onto his shoulders, but it only lasts as long as she has her head down. Once she looks back up to him, her eyes softer, he feels it start to fade. "Castle."

He answers her with a soft smirk.

"Was there something bothering you yesterday?" She asks, making his chest tighten. "It just felt like there was something on your mind all day." He feels his neck crane, his eyes skirting away from hers. "Hey," She encourages, her voice much softer as she gently pushes against his back to get his attention. He looks up with that, unable to deny her. "You know you can tell me, Castle. What is it?"

He draws a breath in through his nose before tightening his arms around her. "You remember what I said… about doing whatever it takes to protect the people love?"

Her brow creases, forming a straight line as her eyes seem to harden. "Castle, what is it?" She asks lovingly.

He steps out of her grasp, grabbing her hand as he does. "Come with me." He says, tugging on her hand. "I need to show you something."

It takes her a moment to unplant her feet, but she follows, but hesitantly. He leads her into his office, letting her hand at the threshold to walk to his desk and grab the remote sitting in the middle. He can hear her heals click as she continues in behind him. He hardens his resolve and clicks the remote, the screen turning on in front of him. He pauses, sensing her presence dwindle, and sets the remote down gently.

When he turns around, her eyes aren't on him, but staring right past him, her brow in a hard line and her eyes fixed on the smart board. "This is everything we have on your case."

Suddenly, she takes wide steps to go around his desk and points at a blacked out picture. "What's that?" She turns around, the same scornful look in her eyes. "Who's this?"

He takes one last breath before he starts. "Before Montgomery went into that hanger, he put a plan in place to make sure that they couldn't touch you. He sent a file containing information that could expose the people behind all this to someone he trusted. That person… made a deal with them. If they left you alone, the information would stay buried. But they had a condition. You had to back off."

Her eyes still haven't changed as she slowly starts back around the desk, staring him down. He's only seen that look in her eyes in interrogation.

"The deal hadn't been struck until after you'd been shot, but he made sure that they wouldn't touch you, but only if you stopped investigating. That's why you're still alive."

She's standing in front of him now, just a foot away, looking… cold. "How do you know all this?" She asks in a small voice.

He closes his eyes again and lowers his head. "In order for it to work, someone had to make sure you were holding up your end. He needed someone around to make sure you weren't going after it."

He can hear her let out a shuttering breath as she takes a step back. "You're a part of all this." She mutters.

"I was doing what I had to to keep you safe."

Her brow tightens as she continues backward, away from him. "That's not what I needed, Castle. I needed a lead, and you've been sitting on this… how long have you known about this, Castle?" She asks, her voice starting to raise.

"Since just after you got back from recovery."

She lets out another shuttering breath as she doubles over slightly, still backing away from him. "You've known about this the entire time." She stops and her anger seems to flash, "You made me a _promise,_ Castle!"

"I wasn't given a choice, Kate." He tries desperately.

"You could have _told_ me! There's someone out there who knows everything. You knew that, and you _sat there!_ You looked me in the eye and you lied to me!" She spews, hot tears starting to well up in her eyes.

"You make it sound like it was easy for me."

"Castle, this is the most important thing in my life. You _knew_ that and you _spied_ on me. You _used_ me, Castle."

"I was showing regard for your life because I knew you wouldn't." He defends himself, finally finding his voice.

"That's _not_ your decision to make!" She yells, jabbing a finger toward the ground. "This is _my_ life, Castle. I am not Nikki Heat, you do _not_ get to decide!"

"They were going to kill you and I was _not_ going to watch you die in my arms again!" He matches her volume.

"This isn't about you, Castle." She spits. "This is _my_ investigation, not yours!"

"You think I don't have a stake in this, Beckett? You think I don't want to see this end?" He asks, shoving a finger toward the smartboard. "Because of these people, I had to watch the life drain out of the woman I love, and I know for a _fact_ that they're still gunning for you, Kate. I'm not going to just sit back and watch you die again!"

"Castle, I don't need your protection. I need to end this!"

"Kate, Montgomery gave his life to keep you away from this!" He says, words getting voiced as soon as he thinks them, and it seems to catch her off guard. "He sacrificed himself to put a stop to it. The man had a wife, he had a family, Kate. He didn't have to go into that hangar for you. He could have just handed you over to them like they wanted, but he didn't. He gave his life so you wouldn't lose yours to these people."

"That's why I have to stop all this, Castle! I have to end all this so I can get on with my life!"

Castle lets out a breath and shrugs his shoulders with a shake of his head. "What then?" He asks, feeling the back of his eyes starting to burn. "What then, Kate? What's going to fill that hole in your life once this case is over with? Because if I can't, tell me now so I can stop fooling myself into thinking I could ever be that for you." He says, his voice starting to strain.

Her expression is softened, but not by much. "Castle, this is not about us. This is about me, and my case."

He closes his eyes to stop the burn, feeling his life leave him. "You're right." He says with a nod, trying and failing to quickly shut off his emotions. "You've… clearly made your decision." He says and moves around his desk, pulling the small thumbdrive out of the smart board and tossing it down on the middle of the desk in front of her, seeing her follow it with a hollowed expression. "Everything's there. Transcribed conversations, composite sketch, phone number. You can… you can have it all."

She slowly picks up the thumb drive in her hands, shaking.

Castle stops at the edge of his desk, always having to have the final word. "I just…" He struggles, his teeth clenched, catching her attention. She feels her heart pound. "I just wish I could have been enough for you, Kate. But… I clearly never will be, so… thank you." He says steadily. She looks up, finding his mouth closed tight, his eyes glossy. "For… for setting me straight. You said yourself that this case was the most important thing in your life, so… who am I to stand in the way of that?"

She feels her breath break as it leaves, her hand loose around the thumb drive as it shakes in her hand.

"So just… take it and go."

He starts out of the office and goes into his bedroom, pushing the door closed, but not closing it shut behind him, leaving her standing in his office, clutching the thumbdrive to everything she… she's supposed to want. She looks at it for a moment, then looks back up toward his bedroom door, feeling tears well up in her eyes, blurring her vision.

As they fall silently, she feels her heart quiver, the thought ringing in her head ever since he confessed it to her.

Not enough?

* * *

 _A/N: I was going to drag it out with some more events, but I didn't feel it hold true to the purpose and plot of this story. I felt this was best. The next chapter will be the last. Wouldn't be organic if I kept it going any longer after that. After I'm finished with this, I will go back to A Whole New Light, then continue on to a few more ideas I have. Let me know what you think. :)_


	13. Chapter 13

She stands in front of his desk, feeling weak, clutching the thumbdrive between her thumb and forefinger. Her heart is shuttering in her chest, and her eyes are flooded with unfallen tears, though a few have fallen the few minutes she's been standing here breathing unevenly.

She closes her eyes as her mind drifts back to the day before, having him in her arms with his hands cradling her scars, looking like he was on the verge of breaking completely. She can feel the tenseness in his shoulders on her hands, can hear the shake in his voice as he tells her he won't go through losing her… to this. She knows he meant something happening to her again, but… would it really be any different if she focused all her energy on this… and not them? She knows how dangerous it is to investigate these people, whoever they are, but that's always been a danger she pushed back, even after she got shot.

But once she has that time in her mind, all of yesterday gets cemented, just the memory of spending all day in bed together, in each other's arms with no other ambitions but to stay there just a bit longer. She knows how she feels going after this case; the cold determination, the emotionless heart, the unwillingness to feel anything until she finds something tangible.

She's holding something tangible in her hand now, but she can't summon the will to go after it. She knows why and wasn't prepared to tell him just yet. She was still trying to figure out exactly when it happened, so she could tell him when and where he finally got to her, maybe to make it a joke so she could tell him exactly what he did and jokingly blame him for it. But now, hearing what he thinks, the doubt, even self-deprecation, tearing himself down because of her, it's not like him.

How could he think he's not enough? Has she ever really said that? That he just wasn't enough for her? What even put that in his mind?

It isn't until she looks down to the flashdrive still hanging loosely in her hand that she knows. Realization flooding her mind, she drops it like a hot stone onto his desk, backing away from it with a few steps, feeling her breath catch as another pair of tears are pulled from her eyes. She looks over to his bedroom door, cracked open just a few inches. She closes her mouth, feels her heart beat hard as she turns and slowly starts toward the door.

Pushing it open gently, she sees him sitting on the edge of his bed, a hand in his hair. "Castle." She calls to him in a soft voice, not all there.

"No… Beckett, I'm the one that pushed you down this rabbit hole, it's time I-"

"Castle." She calls again, firmer but still given away by the quiver in her voice.

He looks up, feeling pulled back by the sight of her, standing just past the entrance to his bedroom, shoulders drawn in, tear tracks down her cheeks, with her lashes hanging onto one on one side. He sits up as he watches it fall. He managed to stop his, turning into just hardened guilt in the pit of his stomach.

"Is that really what you think?" She asks softly with a slight shrug of her shoulders. "That you're not enough for me?"

He shakes his head, self-pity still winning out, and stands up. "We've only been together for two days, I don't expect to win over your case."

"And it's been the best two days of my life, Castle." She says, voice soiled with emotion. He looks up to her again and sees the corners of her lips tucked in. "We spent all day yesterday just lying in each other's arms, letting the whole world fall away. I've never done that before, Castle. No one's ever been that special to me."

He feels a hopeful confidence start to challenge his self-pity wanting to deny what she's saying. He stays silent and just listens to her, letting his emotions war between each other.

"I'm never happier than when I'm with you. That would be a lot harder to admit if it wasn't as true as it is, and if you think just walking away from that comes easy to me, then you're wrong. My mother deserves justice," She nods, her eyes skirting away, "but not if the price is you, because that's a price I'm not willing to pay."

"No, Beckett, I-"

"Castle." She stops him, a hand raised slightly and a sad smile flashing across her face. "I'm kind of pouring my heart out here." She says with a slight, nervous chuckle. He feels a smile tug at the edges of his lips as he lets her continue. She lets out a breath to resettle herself before looking back up to him. "You've always been there for me… even when I didn't want you to be. You've always… gone to lengths I could never reach to get me to believe in myself."

Hope starts winning out as her tears start to dry up.

"I know I have a history of not seeing it, but now that I do, I can't just give this up. Maybe I would have a couple years ago, or… or maybe even a couple months ago, but not now. And you're wrong, Castle." She says on a breath. "You are… more than enough for me." She tells him, taking a small step toward him, "Probably more than I deserve, if you ask anyone else."

"Kate, that's not what you just said." He says, shaking his head and lifting his hand toward his office.

She clenches her teeth and holds up her hands. "It… it was a bad first reaction." He stops thinking about her sudden shift, accepting what he's hearing. "And we can talk about that later, but right now, you have to know that you were wrong." Her eyes drift off again and she shakes her head. "And I was wrong. Castle, closing that case is important to me, but it is _not_ the most important thing in my life. And maybe I didn't see it until now. But I convinced myself that I couldn't be who you deserve until I closed it."

The battle inside himself has been won. Now, he feels pulled toward her, but is staying still, knowing she's not done.

"But you were right, if I can't be that for you now, then nothing is going to change if I do ever manage to close this case. And I have made my decision, and I'm choosing you. I know what I want now, Castle." She says with a nod.

"And… what is that?" He asks, almost hesitant as he takes a small step toward her.

She flashes him a smile, "I want to… to know what it's like to wake up next to you in the morning without having just been kidnapped and handcuffed. I want to know what it's like to pick fights with each other just so we can have incredible make up sex. I want to know what it's like to just… come home to you. I want to know you the way you know me, inside and out. And all of this is a just a way of telling you something I'm still trying to figure out as to when it happened, and I was waiting until I did to tell you but I don't think that really matters."

He feels his blood race with anxiousness as the air between then turns tense.

"I'm in love with you, Rick." She says with a lift in her voice. He can feel his heart explode and can feel himself physically force himself to stop from leaping forward. "And if I realized it was happening, I would have probably fought against it harder than I have, but… you snuck up on me." She says on a hollow chuckle, still smiling sadly to him. "But fighting how I feel about you is something I don't want to do anymore."

His breath quickens, so much so she can probably see him on the verge of hyperventilating. His body aches having to be still, wanting her, but at the same time wanting her to finish.

"A part of me still doesn't understand why you hid all this from me, but another part of me does. But when it comes down to it, Rick, all that matters is I don't want to know what it's like not to have you in my life. And I'm tired of us breaking each other's hearts and not having anything to show for it but emotional scars. I love you, Castle… and I want us to have something real, and… a-and I feel like I'm rambling at this point, so could you jus-"

It's then that he's finally given permission to launch himself forward, throwing his lips onto hers, quickly wrapping his arms around her, feeling her put her arms around his shoulders and her fingers in his hair, hearing her breath catch. He squeezes her into him with his arms and kisses her just a bit harder as he hears her let out a breath, shuttering on its way out her nostrils. She releases his lips, but doesn't back away, speaking to him against him.

"Yeah, that."

He feels himself want to laugh, but his want won't let him and just swallows her words, catching her mouth again with his. She slides her hand out of his hair and onto his jaw, deepening their already deep, passionate kiss. He presses his hands against her back and lets her lips go, each brushing against each other. She rubs her nose tenderly against his before laying their foreheads together.

They stand silent for a moment, petting each other with their fingers, his thumb stroking a pattern on the dip of her spine, and her along his cheek, and it isn't until the need is stopping him from enjoying having the love of his life in his arms that he finds his voice. "I'm sorry, Kate."

She shakes her head against his, not pulling back. "Don't apologize, Rick." She tells him and presses her lips to his chastely, then pulls back, still stroking his cheek. "After what you said yesterday, I get it."

He shakes his head, eyes drifting away from her sparkling gaze. "No, Kate, I-"

She stops him with her fingers pressed gently against his lips, "Rick," She starts as she moves her arms back around his neck, "I can handle a lot. I barely survived losing my mom, but… I don't know if I'm strong enough to lose you too. And you were right, if there was anything I could do to keep that strength from being tested, I'd probably do it." She softens her gaze up to him as much as she can while he tightens his arms around her. "But I don't ever want it to be."

He smiles, a warmth emanating from her that he always wished could be all his. Now it is. "I love you, Kate."

She's done hiding. She's done making excuses. She's done running from what she knows she truly wants. She's done running from him, from them. She's done chasing after something that will only get her more heartbreak. She's done leaving him behind, telling him to just wait a bit longer for her. She's done denying what her heart wants. She's done not being happy. "I love you too, Castle."

 **End**


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